This American Life

By This American LifeSociety & Culture News Arts

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This American Life episodes

January 14, 2024 567: What’s Going On In There?
Often we see someone’s situation from the outside and think we know exactly what’s going on. This week, we get inside and find out just how much more interesting the reality of it is.
A mysterious tunnel is found in a forest in Toronto. Public speculation is all over the place and totally wrong. Nick Kohler tells Ira the story behind the tunnel. (10 minutes)
Act One: A teenager reports what it is like to be inside an abusive relationship with an older man. (29 minutes)
Act Two: Larry speaks English. His dad speaks Chinese. They grew up in the same house but Larry could never speak to his dad. After 20 years, with the help of filmmaker Bianca Giaever, he and his dad have their first conversation. (16 minutes)
1 hr
January 07, 2024 205: Plan B
There's the thing you plan to do, and then there's the thing you end up doing.
Ira summarizes the results of an informal poll of about a hundred people, about whether they were living their Plan A or Plan B and recounts a moment from a short story by author Ron Carlson. (2 minutes)
Act One: John Hodgman first encountered Cuervo Man on a press junket to Cuervo Nation, a small island owned by Jose Cuervo Tequila. Cuervo Man was wearing nothing but a Speedo, wraparound shades, and a red cape. Occasionally he’d stick a toilet plunger on his bald head. John was fascinated and eventually got to know Cuervo Man, whose real name was Ryan. Though the Cuervo act was Ryan’s Plan B, it had a special power that John couldn't help but envy. (19 minutes)
Act Two: Starlee Kine was becoming friends with a woman named Robin when they started to encounter an obstacle, a common obstacle people run into when the become friends as adults. So Robin invented a Plan B to solve the problem. (6 minutes)
Act Three: Ira talks with Barry Keenan, who was living a lot of people’s plan A in the early 60’s. He was rich, he was successful. But when he lost all his money and got hooked on painkillers, he switched to a Plan B to make money. He decided to kidnap the 19-year-old Frank Sinatra Jr. (11 minutes)
Act Four: Jonathan Goldstein took a telemarketing job as a kind of temporary Plan B, never suspecting that it would be a ten year chapter in his life. (10 minutes)
Act Five: J. Robert Lennon reads an excerpt from his short story "The Accursed Items," in which he demonstrates that even objects can fulfill a fate different from the one for which they were intended. Even inanimate objects can have a plan B. (6 minutes)
1 hr 1 min
December 31, 2023 241: 20 Acts in 60 Minutes
Instead of the usual "each week we choose a theme, and bring you 3 or 4 stories on that theme" business, we throw all that away and bring you 20 stories—yes, 20—in 60 minutes.
Ira Glass introduces the idea of doing 20 stories in one hour.
Act One: Contributor Starlee Kine talks to actor Tate Donovan about the day he felt he was being exactly the kind of celebrity he'd wanted to be: when suddenly, he was approached by a kid with a camera.
Act Two: Writer and producer Scott Carrier recognizes a woman he sees in a restaurant.
Act Three: Susan Drury talks about "Swap and Shop," a local radio classifieds show that has become a low-tech, personable sort of Ebay.
Act Four: From Patty Martin: a one minute, four second vacation on Nantucket Island, involving a lot of waving.
Act Five: From Vicki Merrick, Eric Kipp, and Jay Allison at Transom: scallops on Martha's Vineyard.
Act Six: From Blunt Youth Radio: a story of a possibly bad "food situation" at the cafeteria in juvenile detention.
Act Seven: Jonathan Goldstein, host of Wiretap, brings us this story about The Penguin as a young man.
Act Eight: Two brothers, ages 12 and 13, have very different ideas for their dog's name.
Act Nine: Elaine Boehm overhears a couple in her pet shop, trying to choose a dog collar.
Act Ten: A two minute play called “Title,” written and performed by Greg Allen and Heather Riordan of the Chicago group, The Neo-Futurists. It’s part of their long-running show "Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind: 30 Plays in 60 Minutes."
Act Eleven: Author David Sedaris on cell phone usage in restrooms.
Act Twelve: Brent Runyon reports from the kids' section at the public library.
Act Thirteen: Catherine and John, two college undergrads, do a babysitting gig together. After the kids are asleep and the two of them get hungry, John doesn't think they should eat any of the food in the house; they settle on a compromise.
Act Fourteen: Mystery and missing flavor at the hot dog plant.
Act Fifteen: Author David Rakoff worked at an advertising agency, and could see exactly where its technology was going.
Act Sixteen: Someone sits next to the printer. You see him forty times a day. What's his name? What does he do?
Act Seventeen: Richard Kerry has an impressive ability: he can recreate the sound of a whole swamp.
Act Eighteen: Author Chuck Klosterman and his friends make a party game out of comparing television shows to rock bands. They call it "Monkees Equals Monkees."
Act Nineteen: Every year 1,200 new army cadets arrive at West Point. Once they say a single sentence correctly, they can go to their barracks. But not until then. David Lipsky reports. He's the author of Absolutely American.
Act Twenty: Teenage girls from a detention center perform a song for their parents.
1 hr
December 24, 2023 820: It Wouldn’t Be Make-Believe If You’d Believe In Me
A major political party in a major swing state bets on a new leader: a total political outsider. How does that work out for them?
Prologue: In 2022, Michigan Republicans ran anti-establishment candidates who claimed the last presidential election was stolen. And they lost big. Now, the state party regroups and must decide whether to stay the course or moderate. (7 minutes)
Act One: The Michigan GOP’s newly elected leader, Kristina Karamo, faces her first big test: Can she organize and pull off the state party’s fabled, expensive Mackinac Island conference as a political outsider – with no fundraising experience or establishment connections? (9 minutes)
Act Two: Two young Michigan GOP vice chairs are totally on board with Kristina Karamo’s take on politics and hate the establishment like her. So why do they feel iced out by her? (15 minutes)
Act Three: At the start of the year, Warren Carpenter was a Kristina Karamo supporter; helped her get elected. Now he’s plotting her ouster. (13 minutes)
Act Four: Kristina Karamo and her camp defend themselves against Warren’s attacks that they’re bad at fundraising and bad at leading the party. (13 minutes)
1 hr 3 min
December 22, 2023 819: Special Bonus Podcast — Yousef’s Week
A series of conversations with a man in Gaza over the course of one week.
Act One: One of our producers, Chana Joffe-Walt, had a series of conversations with a man in Gaza over the course of one week. They're so immediate – and particular to this moment in the war in Gaza – that we're bringing them to you now, outside of our regular schedule.
43 min
December 17, 2023 818: Stand Clear of the Closing Doors
In the last year and a half, New York City has scrambled to try and provide shelter and services to over 150,000 migrants. We take a look at how that’s going.
Prologue: In the middle of the night, host Ira Glass meets a woman on a mission at Port Authority bus station. (13 minutes)
Act One: Producer Valerie Kipnis follows a group of people who’ve just arrived at their new home, a tent shelter in the middle of nowhere. (11 minutes)
Act Two: Producer Diane Wu talks to an asylum seeker trying to hustle his way through bureaucratic limbo. (11 minutes)
Act Three: Host Ira Glass meets some of the city’s newest arrivals in every New Yorker’s least favorite place. (9 minutes)
Act Four: Three girls, whose families traveled thousands of miles to get to New York, navigate their latest challenge: American middle school. (11 minutes)
Act 5: One woman needs to find shelter for 27 young men in a matter of hours. (15 minutes)
1 hr 18 min
December 10, 2023 786: It's a Game Show!
Something we’ve never done before: true stories told in the form of a game show.
Prologue: Jiayang Fan has this theory that because she's spent so much time thinking about her own accent when she speaks English, she believes that when she hears other Chinese-Americans speak, she can tell how old they were when they immigrated to the U.S. (7 minutes)
Act One: We test Jiayang Fan’s self-proclaimed special skill by having her listen to three Chinese-Americans speak, and then guss when they came to the U.S. (20 minutes)
Act Two: Is it possible for the U.S. to reach the goals set by the Paris Agreement? What steps would we have to take to cut emissions by 50% by 2030? We challenge climate researcher Melissa Lott to get us to that number. (11 minutes)
Act Three: A game of telephone played on the podcast Normal Gossip reveals how gossip spreads, and why stories change from person to person. (15 minutes)
1 hr 6 min
December 03, 2023 817: The Cavalry Is Not Coming
When you realize that help is not on the way, what do you do next?
Prologue: Saddam Sayyaleh’s job right now is trying to get trucks filled with aid into Gaza and he knows it’s nowhere close to what’s actually needed. (10 minutes)
Act One: Tim Reeves runs a hospital in rural Pennsylvania, and he’s trying to do something that is so hard to do and that he knows is completely up to him. (11 minutes)
Act Two: One of our producers, Nadia Reiman, talked to officials who work in the asylum and refugee branches at the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services. They gave her a window into the immigration system under President Biden that you don’t usually get. (32 minutes)
1 hr
November 26, 2023 816: Poultry Slam
During the highest turkey consumption period of the year, we bring you a This American Life tradition: stories of turkeys, chickens, geese, ducks, fowl of all kinds—real and imagined—and their mysterious hold over us.
Prologue: Ira Glass talks with Scharlette Holdman, who works with defense teams on high profile death row cases, and who has not talked to a reporter in more than 25 years. Why did she suddenly end the moratorium on press? Because her story is about something important: namely, a beautiful chicken. (2 minutes)
Act One: Scharlette Holdman's story continues, in which she and the rest of a legal defense team try to save a man on death row by finding a star witness — a chicken with a specific skill. (10 minutes)
Act Two: Yet another testimony to the power chickens have over our hearts and minds. Jack Hitt reports on an opera about Chicken Little. It's performed with dressed-up styrofoam balls, it's sung in Italian and, no kidding, able to make grown men cry. (14 minutes)
Act Three: Ira accompanies photographer Tamara Staples as she attempts to photograph chickens in the style of high fashion photography. The chickens are not very cooperative. (15 minutes)
Act Four: Kathie Russo's husband was Spalding Gray, who was best known for delivering monologues onstage—like "Monster in a Box," and "Swimming to Cambodia." On January 10, 2004, he went missing. Witnesses said they saw him on the Staten Island Ferry that night. Two months later, his body was pulled out of the East River. Kathie tells the story of the night he disappeared, and about how, in the weeks following, she and each of their three children were visited by a bird, who seemed to be delivering a message to them. (9 minutes)
58 min
November 12, 2023 814: Parents Are People
What happens when you realize the people in charge don’t have the answers.
Prologue: Guest Host Chana Joffe-Walt asks her kids when they first encountered adult fallibility. (8 minutes)
Act One: A middle schooler really wants to trust the adults have her best interests in mind. But some of the most powerful people at her school begin to make that very difficult. (27 minutes)
Postscript: In Israel and Gaza, children are directly facing the fact that the adults around them cannot protect them. (4 minutes)
Act Two: Comedian Gary Gulman on a choice his dad made for him when he was seven years old. (11 minutes)
Act Three: There are many kids who do not gradually discover that grown ups don’t have a handle on everything. These kids already know. Miriam Toews’s novel, “Fight Night,” is about a nine-year-old named Swiv who takes care of her grandma and manages her mom’s mental health struggles. Even simple tasks can become complicated, like taking them both on the bus. (7 minutes)
1 hr 4 min

About This American Life

From the publisher's feed

Each week we choose a theme. Then anything can happen. This American Life is true stories that unfold like little movies for radio. Personal stories with funny moments, big feelings, and surprising…

Best of This American Life

Ranked by our users in the last 21 days

Number 1: 899: Reaching Out
Oct 51 hr 3 min
Number 2: 427: Original Recipe
Oct 121 hr 4 min
Number 3: 898: An Argument
Sep 281 hr 3 min
Number 4: 897: Intergenerational Space Travel
Sep 211 hr 7 min
Number 5: 646: The Secret of My Death
Sep 141 hr 8 min

FAQ about This American Life

What's this show about?
This American Life presents true stories that unfold like little movies for radio. Each week the show chooses a theme and then features personal stories with funny moments, big feelings, and surprising plot twists.
What's it like to listen to?
Expect a highly produced, narrative-driven experience. The show delivers a blend of journalism, storytelling, and humor, often with unexpected turns. Ira Glass's distinctive voice and editing style are integral to the listening experience.
What are recent episodes about?
Recent episodes have explored themes of city life, including stories set on the edge of civilization and in the workplace, and featured stories about immigration.
Who's behind the mic?
Ira Glass is the host and a producer of This American Life. The show is produced in collaboration with WBEZ Chicago. Glass is known for his unique storytelling approach and his work in public radio.
How long is each episode?
Episodes are typically around 30 to 60 minutes.
When do new episodes drop?
New episodes release regularly.
What are the main topics?
Society & Culture, news, arts, storytelling, personal narratives, journalism
Who should listen to this?
Listeners interested in in-depth storytelling, news, and cultural explorations will enjoy this show. It appeals to those who appreciate narrative-driven content and a mix of humor and serious topics.