Think from KERA

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).

Citizens of Elizabethan England had very particular ways of thumbing their noses at others – from well-timed zingers to strategic Shakespeare quotes. Historian Ruth Goodman joins us for a rollicking trip back to a low-brow time, the subject of her book “How to Behave Badly in Elizabethan England: A Guide for Knaves, Fools, Harlots, Cuckolds, Drunkards, Liars, Thieves, and Braggarts” (W.W. Norton and Co.).

Black women often find themselves in a no-win situation. Call out racism and risk being seen as an agitator, or stay quiet and feel like part of the problem. University of Washington, Seattle associate professor of communications Ralina L. Joseph joins us to talk about how prominent black women – and their everyday counterparts – walk this tightrope daily, the subject of her book “Postracial Resistance: Black Women, Media, and the Uses of Strategic Ambiguity” (NYU Press).

Did the Democrats retake the House? Was Ted Cruz able to hold off Beto O’Rourke? This week, we finally get the answers to those long-simmering questions and many others. We talk about the major storylines of the midterm elections with Rebecca Deen, chair of the University of Texas at Arlington political science department, and Tony Carey Jr., associate professor of political science at the University of North Texas.

Between politicians and federal judges, public figures talk a lot about what the Founding Fathers intended in the words they wrote to form the nation. Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Joseph J. Ellis joins us to examine the thought processes of Washington, Jefferson, Madison and Adams to shed light on how they might view some of today’s most important questions. Ellis’ new book is called “American Dialogue: The Founders and Us” (Knopf).

The Black Lives Matter movement was birthed by a hashtag just a few years ago. The call for equality and dignity, however, dates back much further. Johns Hopkins University philosopher Christopher J. Lebron joins us to walk through the history of American black intellectual thought — from Frederick Douglass and Langston Hughes to Zora Neal Hurston and James Baldwin. Lebron is the winner of this year’s Hiett Prize from the Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture, and author most recently of “The Making of Black Lives Matter: A Brief History of an Idea” (Oxford University Press).

Reading is one of the most studied aspects of human learning. And yet, students are rarely taught to read using scientifically proven methods. Emily Hanford, senior education correspondent for APM Reports, joins us to talk about why educators are failing kids when it comes to reading, the subject of her audio documentary “Hard Words: Why Aren’t Kids Being Taught to Read?”

Every Saturday, public radio listeners tune into “Wait Wait … Don’t Tell Me” to catch up on the week that was and have a few laughs. Host Peter Sagal travels the country with the show, and the one thing he never forgets to pack is his running shoes. He joins us to talk all things running, the subject of his new book “The Incomplete Book of Running” (Simon & Schuster).

If you think Congress is a messy place now, you should’ve been there in the run-up to the Civil War. Yale history professor Joanne Freeman joins guest host John McCaa to talk about a time when pistols were routinely drawn and all-out brawls frequently erupted on the House floor. Her new book is called “The Field of Blood: Violence in Congress and the Road to Civil War” (Farrar, Straus and Giroux).

As Great Britain continues its Brexit negotiations with the E.U., one of the sticking points is the necessity for a physical border between Ireland and Northern Ireland. Daniel Mulhall, Ireland’s ambassador to the United States, joins us to talk about how Brexit will affect the country– and about the state of U.S.-Irish relation