RadioWest

In her most recent book, The Lost Art of Scripture , religious scholar Karen Armstrong looks into the history of sacred texts, showing how religious practitioners' relationships with them have changed, and how many of us have lost sight of what they were originally written for.

This week, the Washington Post reported that a whistleblower filed a complaint to the Internal Revenue Service that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints has stockpiled roughly $100 billion in funds in their investment management company, Ensign Peak Advisors.

Nothing quite says happy holidays like a futuristic AI take over – which is why our annual Radio Hour is bringing you “a little sentient AI for the holidays.” Join us for Plan-B Theatre Company’s live performance of Utah playwright Matthew Ivan Bennett’s sci-fi experiment, “CIRCLE.”

Are robots taking over the world? In her new book about artificial intelligence, Melanie Mitchell sets aside the hysterics around AI and asks us to think about it this way: What can artificial intelligence actually do well? And what can’t it do?

As part of our monthly film series Through the Lens, we’ll examine Academy Award-winning documentarian Errol Morris’ latest film, American Dharma with Dr. David Resha, associate professor of Film Studies at Oxford College of Emory University.

As a music historian, Ted Gioia seeks out the stories of musical outsiders. His new book, Music: A Subversive History, explores the impact of music’s concealed influences and the power that music holds over us.

It’s our favorite time of year: The RadioWest Holiday Books Show! Even if you never know what to buy your people for the holidays, choosing new books is easy thanks to recommendations from our panel of local professionals, Catherine Weller, Ken Sanders and Betsy Burton.

Do you use punctuation when you text? Do you replace words with emojis? Because Internet author Gretchen McCulloch says the Internet is changing the way we use language everywhere we communicate — not just online.

Writer Pico Iyer has lived in Japan for 32 years — on a tourist visa. His new book Autumn Light explores life as an outsider in a country he very much feels is home, exploring along the way what home is and how we can communicate by not speaking at all.

Judge Memorial Catholic High School recently forfeited a football game due to their high number of injured players. When is the risk too high for young, developing brains? We look at parents’ and coaches’ responsibilities to young kids who want to play tackle football, and what drives America’s continuing love affair with the game.