RadioWest

The writer Michael Pollan is with us to talk about his book on psychedelics. It’s about their potential to heal mental illnesses, and to explore the subject, Pollan took a few trips himself.

Scholar Jana Riess joins us to explain what she’s learned about millennial Mormons. In a new book she says that while they believe, they’re often more flexible about the rules than previous generations.

Science writer Brian Switek says human bones are often a symbol of death, but they also represent deep truths about who we are. His latest book is a cultural and natural history of our bones.

Monday, we’re discussing a legislative bill that would strengthen Utah’s hate crimes law. Public prosecutors have called the present law "worthless," but does it really need to be replaced?

Friday, we’re talking about Fredrick Douglass, escaped slave, educator, and orator. Historian David Blight says that words were his only weapon, and he used his voice to explain the human condition.

Thursday, we’re looking at the life of Napoleon. Sure, he was crowned emperor of France, but the historian Adam Zamoyski says he was also a rather ordinary man, who happened to live a very big life.

Why do so many cultures and faiths teach some version of an afterlife? Wednesday at 7 p.m., skeptic Michael Shermer joins us to talk about our obsession with immortality and what it means for life here and now.

Tuesday, we’re talking about libraries and their place in today’s digital world. Our guide is the writer Susan Orlean, whose latest book tells the story of a devastating fire that swallowed the Los Angeles Central Library in 1986.

Monday, we're talking about this strange mix in human nature of virtue and violence. The anthropologist Richard Wrangham is fascinated by how and why humans evolved to be both so nice and so brutal.

In his film Hale County This Morning, This Evenin g, director RaMell Ross abandons the traditional documentary form, opting for a kind of lyrical and and vivid portrait of life in the modern South.