When Genevieve Wheeler Brown, a decorative arts expert from The Antique Road Show, was asked to evaluate a collection of blue and white pottery, hidden away for decades in an exclusive Manhattan townhouse, she had no idea that it told the centuries-old story of women's role in a ceramic that travelled from the Middle East to China to Holland and then to Gilded Age New York and eventually the China cabinets of ordinary New Englanders. This is fantastic story of Delftware.

Brad Gooch is an award winning biographer of such gay iconic gay artists as Keith Haring and Frank O'Hara. Having lost his first love to the AIDs epidemic, he was lucky to fall in love again, with a guy who desperately wanted kids and a family. His new book Good Morning Moon tells the story of their quest, in late middle age, to make two kids through in vitro fertilization and his own discovery that, like his own kids, his own parentage is not what is considered 'normal' in our society.

After World War Two, 'The Greatest Generation' returned to America determined to enjoy the freedoms of a world liberated from fascism but another group of Americans were equally determined to finish the job Hitler started by annihilating Jews and relocating Blacks to Africa. In his book The Secret War Against Hate, USC Professor of History tells the largely hidden story of those who risked their lives to fight homegrown fascism in America and how its roots still flourish today.

Journalist Danielle Crittenden lost her 32 year-old daughter to a sudden brain tumor and with that death life as she knew it. She talks with Ira about her new book, Dispatches from Grief, in which she describes how she, and all those who lose a loved one, are dropped into a unfamiliar new landscape without a map.

Two pioneers of the Reproductive Rights movement, Byllye Avery and Loretta Ross, talk about transforming the landscape of reproductive care in the United States and ensuring three core human rights: to have a child, to not have a child, and to parent children in safe and healthy environments.

Do you hate to disagree with people? Avoid arguments? Shy away from conversations with anyone who is likely to contradict your ideas? It's understandable why many of us in today's contentious society try to minimize discord. But it comes at the cost of friendship, information, and connection. Harvard social psychologist Julia Minson talks about science -backed research that teach you How to Disagree Better so that debating may broaden rather than shrink your life.

Longtime Wall Street Journal editor Paul Vigna gives us extraordinary take on where money came from, how it evolved, and how it became ‘almightier’ than almighty god.

Since her death at the age of 15, the name and image of Anne Frank have become archetypal symbols of hope for victims the world; her diary adapted for film, television, theatre, dance, classical music, opera, anime, and indie rock. Award winning biographer Ruth Franklin talks about the life of the real Anne that's often overlooked.

Lindy West is a best-selling author, a comedian and an activist known for her sharp humorous work on feminism, body image, and on-line harassment. She talks about the reality of being a fat role model, contentedly living in a polyamorous relationship, and how she sometimes get a lot of crap for both.

Jessica Mitford was born in a wildly eccentric British noble family, a socialist among fascists, and became the best loved, bestselling muckraking writer in America. Award-winning biographer Carla Kaplan talks to Ira about her fierce and unruly life.