May 21, 2018
"To be alive is to be made of memory."
November 24, 2014
In Memoriam: Richard Eder, The Exemplary Reader
The beloved Richard Eder had the gift he admired in John Updike and that that sparkled in his own prize-winning book reviews: he “snored” metaphors...| More
April 22, 2014
“Rite of Spring” Revival
On the way to our show with Benjamin Zander on Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 9 this Thursday, we're revisiting a show we did with him...| More
April 8, 2014
Cold Wars, and How to Survive Them
Ahead of our show with Elaine Scarry this week, we're reminding ourselves of how we got into the nuclear standoff called the Cold War, and...| More
March 31, 2014
Speaking of Music Again: Oliver Sacks
We've been contemplating the mysteries of music over the past few weeks, since our conversations with Gunther Schuller and Richard Powers. Perhaps the essential question...| More
March 17, 2014
Edna O’Brien: Literature Against Loneliness
In celebration of Saint Patrick's Day: Edna O'Brien is my fair embodiment of a writer's gifts and the pleasures of reading. Her prose, as Philip...| More
March 12, 2014
Vijay Iyer’s Life in Music: "Striving is...
Vijay Iyer brings rare stuff to jazz piano, starting with a Brahmin Indian name and heritage, and a Yale degree in physics. Gujarati stick dances...| More
March 10, 2014
Steve Pinker’s “Better Angels”: Dodging Our Own...
Steven Pinker has written a game-changer on the little matter of how quickly humanity is headed for hell or redemption.Better Angels is a tour de...| More
March 3, 2014
Isabel Wilkerson’s Leaderless March that Remade America
Isabel Wilkerson is the epic tale teller of the Great Migration of Southern black people that remade America — sound, substance and spirit — in...| More
February 25, 2014
Yehudi Wyner’s Life in Music: a Composer...
Yehudi Wyner is an approachable guy in a forbidding field: contemporary “serious” music. He gives us an opening here to ask where new sounds come...| More
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