Marginalia

Bill Roorbach is the author of many books of fiction and nonfiction. His novels include The Smallest Color , The Remedy for Love, and Life Among Giants . One of his story collections, Big Bend , won both the Flannery O’Connor and O. Henry prizes. His work has been featured in Harper’s , the Atlantic , the New York Times Magazine and was one of NPR’s Selected Shorts . I caught up with him recently through Skype at his home in Maine and we spoke his new collection of stories, The Girl of the Lake

Saints for All Occasions by J. Courtney Sullivan is the story of two Irish sisters--Nora and Theresa-- who journey by ship to the United States when they are 21 and 17 years old. Nora, the elder, is engaged to be married to an Irish neighbor who made the trip across the ocean before her. After spending decades in the states, the sisters are still faced with questions about what makes a family, and what it means to be an American. I caught up with Sullivan while she was on tour for the book

In his book, The Unsettlers: In Search of the Good Life in Today’s America , author Mark Sundeen set out to do just that. Find the good life.

At the end of December, I was tagged in a Facebook post by Suzanne Tobias, a reporter and columnist for The Wichita Eagle .

In this podcast, I was able to visit by phone with Mohsin Hamid from his home in Lahore, Pakistan about his new novel, Exit West . The novel follows a young couple who fall in love in an unstable country and decide to migrate to other lands through magical portals. We visited about these literal open doors, human migration--especially in light of recent talk of proposed walls and travel bans, and children’s literature. Here’s our conversation: - That was Mohsin Hamid, author of a new novel Exit

In this podcast, I visited with Patricia Lockwood about her new memoir, Priestdaddy . You see, her father is a married priest... rare, but not unheard of in the Catholic church. A few years ago, unusual circumstances forced Lockwood and her husband to move back home with her parents… only this home was a rectory in the Kansas City, Missouri diocese. Although she’s known for her fiction--and her tweets--Lockwood spent her time at ‘home’ penning this memoir. Here’s our conversation: And if you

In this podcast, I visited with Ulrich Boser about his new book, Learn Better: Mastering the Skills for Success in Life, Business, and School, or, How to Become an Expert in Just about Anything .

Let's explore the subtle soundscapes of the nude human body--specifically, mine.

This episode of Marginalia originally aired on July 7, 2016. Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? was released in paperback on April 4, 2017. - This episode features a conversation I had recently with Dr. Frans de Waal, a Dutch primatologist and ethologist. You might recognize him as one of Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People. Or maybe you’ve watched one of his TED Talks. I caught up with him in Atlanta, where he’s the C.H. Candler Professor in Emory University’s Psychology

In this podcast, I visited with Michael Finkel about his new book, The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit . The story is really Christopher Knight’s story. In 1986, Knight was 20 years old. He left his home and job in Massachusetts, drove to Maine, left his keys in his unlocked car and walked into the woods where he didn’t speak with another human being for 27 years. Okay, there was one time he encountered a hiker and said, “hi”--so that’s one syllable in 27