On today’s Gist, is Sen. John McCain really the greatest political leader of all time?
Have you heard of face gyms? Beauty gurus are rushing to recommend exercises for the forehead, chin, and cheeks to look younger and healthier. Our expert bullshitologist Maria Konnikova is here to scrutinize the case for facial toning. Konnikova is a contributor to the New Yorker and the author of The Confidence Game.
In the Spiel, Salena Zito’s populist divining rod.
The Farm Bill is a collection of handouts unlike any other. It's designed almost entirely to earn majority support for hundreds of billions of dollars in handouts. Chris Edwards comments.
This month World Book Club talks to British writer Sarah Waters about her chart-topping novel, Tipping the Velvet.
Celebrating twenty years since its first publication Tipping the Velvet is a bawdy, historical, lesbian romance, following the startling career of Nan King, oyster girl from Whitstable turned music-hall star turned rent boy. Star-struck and infatuated with actress Kitty Butler Nan starts up a double act with her idol both on and off the stage. But when Kitty, hankering after a more conventional life, spurns Nan in favour of marriage to her manager, a devastated Nan is propelled into a series of ever more erotic excursions and ultimately a struggle for survival. (Photo credit: Charlie Hopkinson.)
Jordan Peterson, clinical psychologist and YouTube sensation, professes to bring order to chaos in his 12 Rules for Life. He tells Tom Sutcliffe about the importance of individual responsibility, using lessons from humanity's oldest myths and stories. But his home truths are not without controversy: acclaimed by many, his critics accuse him of reinforcing traditional gender and family roles and attacking liberal values.
Hashi Mohamed is the living embodiment of many of Peterson's life rules: he came to Britain when he was 9 years old with little English and through a combination of skill, luck and hard work is now a barrister. But he is critical of the lack of social mobility and his own rags to riches story is one he thinks is increasingly difficult to realise.
The Irish author Louise O'Neill has made her name challenging the roles given to women. In her books for young adults she has tackled small town hypocrisy and sexism, rape culture and victim-blaming. She too has looked to the stories of the past and her latest book is a radical retelling of Hans Christian Anderson's The Little Mermaid.
The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Lawrence Wright turns his focus on his home state Texas, to see what it can teach us about America. A 'superstate' with a GDP larger than most industrialised countries, and with a population on track to double by 2050, Texas both confirms and challenges its stereotype. Wright is confronted by cowboy individualism, gun-loving patriotism and nostalgia for an ersatz past, but also finds pockets of liberal progressiveness and entrepreneurial drive.
Jordan Peterson, clinical psychologist and YouTube sensation, professes to bring order to chaos in his 12 Rules for Life. He tells Tom Sutcliffe about the importance of individual responsibility, using lessons from humanity's oldest myths and stories. But his home truths are not without controversy: acclaimed by many, his critics accuse him of reinforcing traditional gender and family roles and attacking liberal values.
Hashi Mohamed is the living embodiment of many of Peterson's life rules: he came to Britain when he was 9 years old with little English and through a combination of skill, luck and hard work is now a barrister. But he is critical of the lack of social mobility and his own rags to riches story is one he thinks is increasingly difficult to realise.
The Irish author Louise O'Neill has made her name challenging the roles given to women. In her books for young adults she has tackled small town hypocrisy and sexism, rape culture and victim-blaming. She too has looked to the stories of the past and her latest book is a radical retelling of Hans Christian Anderson's The Little Mermaid.
The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Lawrence Wright turns his focus on his home state Texas, to see what it can teach us about America. A 'superstate' with a GDP larger than most industrialised countries, and with a population on track to double by 2050, Texas both confirms and challenges its stereotype. Wright is confronted by cowboy individualism, gun-loving patriotism and nostalgia for an ersatz past, but also finds pockets of liberal progressiveness and entrepreneurial drive.
The story goes that Amsterdam in the 1630?s was gripped by a mania for Tulip flowers. But then there was a crash in the market. People ended up bankrupt and threw themselves into canals. This story is still being trotted out when people talk about financial markets, lately as a comparison to buying and selling bitcoin. But how much of what we know of the Tulip craze is fact, and how much is myth? We speak to Anne Goldgar at Kings College London who explains all.
Presenter Lawrence Pollard talks to chart-topping Chinese-American writer Celeste Ng and an audience gathered in the local Boston radio Newsfeed Café in the Boston Public Library about her bestselling novel Everything I Never Told You.
In 1970s small-town Ohio Lydia is the favorite child of parents, determined that she will fulfill the dreams they were unable to pursue. But when Lydia’s body is found in the local lake, the delicate balancing act that has been keeping the Chinese-American Lee family together is destroyed.
A profoundly moving story of family, secrets, racism and longing, Everything I Never Told You uncovers the ways in which mothers and daughters, fathers and sons, and husbands and wives struggle, all their lives, to understand one another.
(Photo: Celeste Ng. Credit: Kevin Day Photography)
