Dr. Leana Wen joins us to discuss controversial changes to childhood vaccination schedules, rising flu and measles cases in the US and her concerns about the efficacy and safety of medical cannabis.

Writer Marion Winik talks about the 30th anniversary reissue of her powerful memoir of love and loss, featuring a new introduction by the author, and a new audiobook.

WYPR's Scout Maucione was at a rally of Maryland residents opposing the US military attacks on Venezuela.

WYPR's Nathanael Miller has the latest on plans for massive data centers in Western Maryland.

CES is one of the biggest consumer technology conferences in the world. Tech insider Jason Michael Perry gives a preview live from Las Vegas, Nevada.

The second installment of author Rick Atkinson's "The Revolution Trilogy" describes a difficult, pivotal phase of the American war of independence from Britain.

Prize-winning historian Martha S. Jones's The Trouble of Color explores the way racial classifications in America have impacted Black families and identity.

Bohannon's best-selling 2023 book, now out in paperback, delves into ancient mysteries about the evolution of the female body and its impact on the human species.

(This episode of Midday originally aired on April 23, 2025.) Best-selling writer, Amor Towles, is the author of three novels, including A Gentleman in Moscow, which was adapted for a television series on Paramount+ starring Ewan McGregor.

Towles joins Midday to discuss the writing of his latest work, a brilliant compilation of six short stories set in New York, and a novella set in the golden age of Hollywood that features a character from his novel, Rules of Civility. The collection, newly in paperback, is called Table for Two.

(This interview was originally broadcast on April 23, 2025)

Journalist and author Ruth Franklin joins Midday. Her biography of the writer Shirley Jackson won the National Book Critics Circle Award nine years ago.

Franklin's latest book, The Many Lives of Anne Frank, is another biography. She writes about Frank, the young Jewish girl whose diary, published years after she perished in a Nazi death camp, remains the quintessential literary account of the Holocaust. Franklin's new work is wholly original and striking, particularly in its form and structure.

Tom spoke with Ruth Franklin earlier this year on the Jewish observance of Yam Hashoah, the commemoration of the Holocaust.

Ruth Franklin grew up in Baltimore and graduated from the Park School. She is a literary critic and former editor at The New Republic, and she teaches non-fiction writing in the MFA program at Columbia University.