The San Francisco Experience

Marion Davies was a Hollywood star of the 1920s and 1930s. She was also the life partner of press baron William Randolph Hearst. Author Lara Gabrielle has written a fascinating life story based on meticulous first hand research.

Over the last 40 years, different political groups have sought to politically appropriate the mantle of legitimacy of the Civil Rights Movement. What effect does that have on our collective memory ?

Alfred Hitchcock's horror film classic, "The Birds" was released in March 1963. Filmed on location in San Francisco and Sonoma County - Bodega Bay, Bodega and Valley Ford - it launched the movie career of Tippi Hedren. It is as scary today as it was 60 years ago. But there are also some strong performances by stars Rod Taylor, Suzanne Pleshette and Jessice Tandy.

When Russia privatized the 45,000 state owned companies after the fall of Communism, every man, woman and child in Russia was given a Privatization Voucher. The Siberia Job is a fictionalized account of the efforts of a young American fund manager who participated in the introduction of free market enterprise in the former USSR as an investor.

Chris' recent article in Scientific American highlights the role that the Principle of Entanglement , the research of which earned Physicists Aspect, Clauser and Zeillinger the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2022, in the development of Quantum computers.

Finland has ranked #1 in the World's Happiest Country listing for the sixth year in a row. How did this small Nordic country of 5 million, which 100 years ago was the poorest country in Europe and bullied by Russia for much of the 20th Century, become the happiest place in the world ? Oxford University Professor Danny Dorling breaks down the statistics and the reasons may surprise you.

In this sweeping amalgam of history, politics, philosophy and culture, Professor Hoodbhoy gives us a detailed profile of Pakistan. Perceptive insights about this strategic nation that straddles the Middle East and Central Asia.

Ursula Parrott was a very successful author from 1929 to the late 1940s. A member of the Lost Generation, her body of work consists of 130 novels, short stories and magazine articles that recounted the lives of young women navigating the post WWI world of women's equality. Largely forgotten since the 1950s, Marsha Gordon is re-introducing Parrott's work to the reading public.