Sep 01 Watch In ‘Purity,’ Jonathan Franzen dismantles the deception of idealism By PBS News Hour Continue watching
Aug 31 WATCH: 26 years ago, Oliver Sacks wanted to be remembered like this By Colleen Shalby Not long after Oliver Sacks wrote the bestseller, “The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat,” and just before his 1973 memoir “Awakenings” made its movie debut starring Robin Williams, “The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour” interviewed the famed neurologist. Continue reading
Aug 24 Watch 6:08 Writer Jesmyn Ward reflects on survival since Katrina By PBS News Hour After writer and Tulane University professor Jesmyn Ward survived Hurricane Katrina while staying at her grandmother’s house, she wrote “Salvage the Bones,” an award-winning novel about a Mississippi family in the days leading up to the devastating storm. She joins… Continue watching
Aug 13 Watch 6:06 Understanding the two sides of Reagan: polarizing political icon and pragmatic president By PBS News Hour How did Ronald Reagan, a seemingly ordinary man in many ways, become a president who dominated American politics and ideology in the second half of the 20th century? H.W. Brands offers his take on the politician and pragmatist in “Reagan:… Continue watching
Jul 28 Watch 6:26 How Dr. Seuss’s publisher helped finish a forgotten book By PBS News Hour In 2013, an unfinished book by Theodor Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss, was discovered in a box. Now “What Pet Should I Get” has been published and become an instant bestseller. It was completed by Cathy Goldsmith, who worked… Continue watching
Jul 24 Watch 6:17 Aziz Ansari wants to help you find a mate. Seriously. By PBS News Hour In the modern world, romance is just a click away. Dating sites have sprung up, and the Internet and cell phones allow for quicker communication than ever before. This can make dating easier than ever, but also more awkward than… Continue watching
Jul 22 Watch 4:42 Pulitzer winner wants his readers to question their limits By PBS News Hour When Gregory Pardlo found out he won the Pulitzer Prize for his book “Digest,” he thought there had been some mistake. Jeffrey Brown speaks to Pardlo -- the author of two collections but not previously well-known within the poetry community… Continue watching
Jul 21 Watch 9:19 Being shamed by a CEO turned this mom into a health privacy advocate By William Brangham, Jason Kane Deanna Fei was thrilled when her daughter, born premature at 25 weeks, came home from the hospital. Then, her husband’s boss – the CEO of AOL – claimed he was trimming workers’ retirement benefits because the company had spent too… Continue watching
Jul 16 Watch 6:14 Crime novelist of ‘The Cartel’ calls for end to war on drugs By PBS News Hour The escape of Mexican drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán felt to novelist Don Winslow like it came straight out of the pages of his new book, "The Cartel." Winslow has been writing about the drug wars for years, sharing… Continue watching
Jul 13 Watch 1:50 Harper Lee’s ‘Go Set a Watchman’ offers surprising shift By PBS News Hour The first surprise was the manuscript itself: an unpublished novel by Harper Lee that predated "To Kill a Mockingbird." The existence and subsequent publication of "Go Set a Watchman" has spurred huge national interest, as well as record book orders. Continue watching