Interviews

With books like Stiff and Spook, Roach has built a reputation for making unpalatable subjects entertaining. In Gulp, she tackles the human digestive system, from the mouth on down.

Before he died, Walter George Bruhl Jr. penned his own obituary. Funny and moving, the obit went viral soon after it was posted on the website Reddit. His son Martin speaks about his father's note.

When Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie moved from Nigeria to the U.S., she was suddenly confronted with what it meant to be a person of color in America. Her novel explores race in contemporary America.

Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson explains why the cosmos shouldn't make you feel small. Critic John Powers remembers Harold Ramis. And if you think you're anonymous online, think again.

In The Testament of Mary, Colm Toibin imagines Mary's life 20 years after her son's crucifixion, what she might have done to ease her son's suffering. (Originally broadcast on Nov. 28, 2012.)

Payne says he first read Nebraska — about a man who is showing signs of dementia — as a comedy. We'll listen back to an interview with Payne originally broadcast on Dec. 2, 2013.

At last, Russell is making the films "he was meant to make." For a rabbi who worked with the Nazis, is judgment "unjust"? And we follow one man's quest to find the "sonic wonders of the world."

On the hit PBS Masterpiece series, the social rules the characters have always known are changing as the world events of the 20th century unfold. The series' creator, Julian Fellowes, says his relatives who lived through that era inspired his lasting interest in class.

The leading man known for his good looks and charm has lately been taking on more serious roles in films such as Bernie, Magic Mike and Mud. We'll listen back to excerpts from an April 2013 interview.

The fourth volume in Robert Caro's monumental biography of Lyndon Johnson is The Passage of Power; it explores the period between 1958 and 1964 during which Johnson went from powerful Senate majority leader to powerless vice president to — suddenly — president of the United States. Originally broadcast on May 13, 2013.