You're probably familiar with this routine -- you swab your cheek or spit into a vial, then you send it away to a lab someplace. A month later, you get a report explaining where your ancestors came from...or whether you carry certain genetic risks. But what implications does this very popular trend have for American life and culture? Our guest is Libbey Copeland, whose well-researched new book is "The Lost Family: How DNA Testing Is Upending Who We Are." As was noted of this work by Wired.com:

On this edition of ST, we learn about THE EXPERIENCE: IMAGINE, which is a newly created group exhibition opening today (Friday the 7th) at ahha Tulsa. It's a rather Outer Space (or Sci-Fi, or Other Worldly) type of show that, per the ahha website , features "large-scale, semi-permanent, interactive art. When you visit THE EXPERIENCE: IMAGINE, you will explore zones designed and built by one of six Tulsa-based artists. Each has different interactive elements. What will you discover?" Our guest is

(Please note: This interview first aired back in March.) Our guest is Katharine Holstein, an American-Canadian writer and human rights advocate. She's also the co-author of "Shadow on the Mountain: A Yazidi Memoir of Terror, Resistance, and Hope." As was noted of this compelling profile of the Yazidi people of northwestern Iraq by The New York Journal of Books: "[This is a] spellbinding tale woven with gorgeous phrasing, compelling you to finish its journey at a breakneck pace along with Shaker

Robert Draper is our guest; he is a writer at large for The New York Times Magazine and a contributing writer to National Geographic. His many books include the bestselling "Dead Certain: The Presidency of George W. Bush." His new book, which he tells us about, is "To Start a War: How the Bush Administration Took America into Iraq." As was noted of this work by The Los Angeles Times: "The serial mistruths, mistakes, and misperceptions about Iraq's supposed weapons of mass destruction and alleged

There are many, many different skin-care products out there...and keeping skin healthy has long been a booming industry...but how did we get here? And why are there so many confusing messages from health experts regarding the care of our skin? Why are there so many ineffective treatments? Our guest is a preventative medicine physician and staff writer for The Atlantic whose new book explains the surprising (and often unintended) effects of our modern-day hygiene practices; his book also offers

Our guest is the true-crime writer Jax Miller, who joins us to discuss her new book. "Hell in the Heartland" documents a stranger-than-fiction cold case from rural Oklahoma that has stumped authorities for some two decades. The book is called "Hell in the Heartland: Murder, Meth, and the Case of Two Missing Girls." As was noted by Library Journal: "True crime fans who are fascinated by the dark side of rural life and police incompetence, and open to a somewhat ambiguous ending, will find much to

Our guest is the widely celebrated novelist and nonfiction writer Nicholson Baker, whose new book is an engrossing mash-up of history, journalism, and memoir. The book is called "Baseless," and it's focused on the modern-day Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA. Baker's gripping and typically candid account carefully documents what it feels like to try to write about major historical events in a world of pervasive redactions, witheld records, widespead cover-ups, and glacially slow governmental

(Please note: This interview first aired back in March.) Our guest is Ariana Neumann, a journalist born and raised in Venezuela who's now based in London. She joins us to discuss her book, "When Time Stopped," which is a work of memoir/history that digs deeply into the secrets of her own father's past. That is, the years he spent hiding from the Nazis in Berlin, the murder of many of his family members in the Holocaust, and the brave choice he finally made to create a new life for himself. As

Our guest is Colin Dickey, a writer perhaps best known for his popular nonfiction book from a years ago, "Ghostland." Dickey is a regular contributor to The LA Review of Books and Lapham's Quarterly; he also co-edited The Morbid Anatomy Anthology. An active cultural historian and associate professor of creative writing at National University, he joins us to discuss his interesting and well-researched new book, which is, as was noted by Buzzfeed, "absolutely perfect for the current moment." That

Our guest is Pam Fessler, an award-winning correspondent with NPR News who mainly covers poverty, philanthropy, and voting issues. She joins us to discuss her new book, "Carville's Cure," which is tells the fascinating and little-known story of the only leprosy colony in the continental United States. This facility, located in remote Carville, Louisiana, somehow became -- over the course of the 20th century -- much more of a refuge than a prison. As was noted of this book by Publishers Weekly: