On this episode, an interview with essayist Donovan Hohn, author of The Inner Coast: Essays and Moby-Duck: The True Story of 28,800 Bath Toys Lost at Sea.

On this episode, an interview with novelist Natalie Bakopoulos, author of Scorpionfish and The Green Shore.

On this episode of Footnotes to a Novel, a look back into our distant past, when stories and death were still new. I talk with archaeologist Timothy Taylor, author of The Buried Soul: How Humans Invented Death.

On this episode, I'm joined by author Karen Outen, who will be reading her essay "Fear Will Not Save Us." We talk art, the perils of mountain climbing, and the long difficult path toward racial justice in America.

A review of Jonathan Buckley's latest novel The Great Concert of the Night (New York Review Books)

Music: Indigo Blocks by Daniel Birch (www.danielbirchmusic.com)

On this episode, an interview with best-selling novelist Elizabeth Kostova, author of The Historian, The Swan Thieves, and The Shadow Land.

Music: "Self Driving," by Sro

A review of Richard Ford's latest short story collection, Sorry for Your Trouble (Ecco).

Music: "Away," by Meydän, from Ambient Works

On today's episode, I sit down with Peter Ho Davies, author of Equal Love, The Ugliest House in the World, and The Welsh Girl. His latest novel is The Fortunes.

An interview with historian John Tosh, author of The Pursuit of History, on the limits of history, why history matters so much, and what history can teach us about ourselves and our past.