Think from KERA

Parenting can be particularly difficult for working mothers, seeing as that working fathers are usually just known as “fathers.” Amy Westervelt joins us to talk about her experiences balancing work and parenting, which included checking in with her boss from the maternity ward. Her new book is called “Forget Having It All: How America Messed Up Motherhood – and How to Fix It” (Seal).

With nuclear threats, natural disasters and social unrest, it feels like scary times, doesn’t it? Sociologist Barry Glassner joins us to talk about why our perception of these threats doesn’t line up with the reality of trouble striking. His best-selling book “The Culture of Fear: Why Americans Are Afraid of the Wrong Things” (Basic Books) has just been updated and re-released.

Two men – one American, one Brit – are each attempting to become the first person to cross Antarctica on foot unassisted. New Yorker staff writer David Grann joins us to talk about Henry Worsley, a British special forces officer who gave it a shot in 2015 (spoiler alert: he didn’t succeed). Grann tells the story in his new book, “The White Darkness” (Doubleday).

Lindsay Wong grew up in a family full of mental illness. But instead of seeking treatment, her grandmother and mother blamed their maladies on ghosts who haunted the living. Wong joins us to talk about how the stigma surrounding mental illness affected her loved ones, which she writes about in her memoir, “The Woo Woo: How I Survived Ice Hockey, Drug Raids, Demons, And My Crazy Chinese Family” (Arsenal Pulp Press).

The fruits, vegetables, legumes and other foods that wind up on our tables all have something in common: They made it there because of sex. University of California, Riverside genetics professor Norman C. Ellstrand joins us to talk about the mechanics of plant reproduction, which he writes about in “Sex on the Kitchen Table: The Romance of Plants and Your Food” (University of Chicago Press).

Some of our most important industries – banking, technology, pharmaceuticals – are controlled by just a handful of companies. Columbia University professor Tim Wu joins us to talk about the link between concentrated industrial influence and concentrated wealth, which he writes about in “The Curse of Bigness: Antitrust in the New Gilded Age” (Columbia Global Reports).

Humanity approaches pets and even endangered species with kindness. Jacy Reese joins us to talk about how the next step in expanding our morality is to extend that same compassion to animals we raise for food. His new book is called “The End of Animal Farming: How Scientists, Entrepreneurs, and Activists are Building an Animal-Free Food System” (Beacon Press).

CEOs and company boards have a duty to maximize shareholder profits. Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post columnist Steven Pearlstein joins us to talk about how this mission has widened the American wealth gap – and about how a return to one of Adam Smith’s key principles could be the solution. His new book is called “Can American Capitalism Survive?: Why Greed is not Good, Opportunity is not Equal, and Fairness Won’t Make Us Poor” (St. Martin’s Press).

We all want our kids to receive a good education. But what constitutes a “good education?” Ken Robinson joins us to talk about how parents can guide their children to the right school and see that they make the most of their time in the classroom. His most recent book is called “You, Your Child, and School: Navigate Your Way to the Best Education” (Viking).

Sterilize your kitchen counters all you want: You’ll never be rid of the thousands of tiny organisms who live alongside us. Biologist Rob Dunn joins us to introduce us to the creatures small and smaller who inhabit the same spaces we do. His new book is called “Never Home Alone: From Microbes to Millipedes, Camel Crickets, and Honeybees, the Natural History of Where We Live” (Basic Books).