Anne and Steve’s new podcast will be about nature, science and wonder – plus, myths, fairy tales, poetry and the unconscious. Anne gives us a quick preview and promises more to come.

Wonder Cabinet will drop right here in this feed in early January 2026, so keep your subscription active!

To follow Wonder Cabinet, sign up here:  https://wondercabinetproductions.com/

You listened on car trips and overnight flights, in tents and canoes, kitchens and living rooms. You shared our love of ideas, our search for wonder, our curiosity and our belief in the future. Now, after 35 years, it’s time for us to say goodbye. In this hour, Anne talks with TTBOOK’s producers about some of their favorite interviews and why public radio is such a powerful medium.

Music in this hour was provided by the Aurora Principle, AurbanniAudio, Kai Engel, and Tom Blain.

Original Air Date: September 27, 2025

Interviews In This Hour:
Anne says goodbye and Steve reflects on Jane Goodall — Shannon Henry Kleiber on the poetry of the human voice — Angelo Bautista on going beyond skin deep — Charles Monroe Kane on intelligent optimism

Guests:
Anne Strainchamps, Steve Paulson, Shannon Henry Kleiber, Angelo Bautista, Charles Monroe-Kane

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Sometimes the world is just too much. Too much awful news, too many things to worry about, too much to do. When you can’t take another headline, can’t handle another email, when you know inside you need something deeper than a vacation — maybe it’s time for a retreat.

Original Air Date: January 18, 2025

Interviews In This Hour:
Pico Iyer’s second home — A plant scientist explores her interior wilderness

Guests:
Pico Iyer, Monica Gagliano

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Categories: retreat, silence, darkness, meditation, quiet

We get the message before we’re out of training pants – when the going gets tough, look on the bright side, make lemonade out of lemons and just do it. We’re going to consider the exact opposite – the wisdom of giving up and letting go. Because sometimes, the strongest and most courageous thing you can do is walk away. 

Original Air Date: April 27, 2024

Interviews In This Hour:
The boundary-breaking power of fasting — How do we know when to call it quits? — Escaping the tyranny of certainty

Guests:
John Oakes, Adam Phillips, Maggie Jackson

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The longest nights of the year are here, but how many of us will see them? The global spread of light pollution is making it harder to experience dark skies and natural darkness. Learning how to reconnect with the planet’s ancient nocturnal rhythms can be profoundly restorative. Nature writers and darkness activists tell us what we’re missing.

Deep Time is a series all about the natural ecologies of time from To The Best Of Our Knowledge and the Center for Humans and Nature. We'll explore life beyond the clock, develop habits of "timefulness" and learn how to live with greater awareness of the many types of time in our lives.

Original Air Date: December 21, 2024

Interviews In This Hour:
Listening to the song of the night — Adjusting our eyes to wonders of the nocturnal world

Guests:
Sam Lee, Leigh Ann Henion

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Can we scale up human flourishing? We know meditation can reduce stress and ease symptoms of depression, but the benefits don’t have to stop there. Some scientists believe just a few minutes of mindfulness practice every day could make entire cities healthier and happier. 

Original Air Date: August 30, 2025

Interviews In This Hour:
Can we boost happiness on a city-wide scale? — How music becomes our collective medicine — Healing trauma takes time. Can we speed up psychotherapy?

Guests:
Richard Davidson, Dalal Abu Amneh, Diana Fosha

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Every click on your computer, every swipe on your smartphone, leaves a data trail. Information about who you are, what you do, who you love, the state of your mind and body… so much data about you, expanding day by day in the digital clouds. The question is—do you care? Would owning your data, or having more digital privacy, make life better? And what happens to all that data when you die?

Original Air Date: November 22, 2024

Interviews In This Hour:
A former child test subject seeks the data that shaped her life — In an age of surveillance, do you still care about your privacy? — When you die, what will happen to your data?

Guests:
Susannah Breslin, Lowry Pressly, Carl Öhman

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The bond we share with dogs runs deep. The satisfaction of gentle head scratches or a round of playing fetch is simple and pure, but in other ways, the connection we have is truly unknowable. How do dogs make our lives better? How do they think? And how do we give them the lives they deserve?

Original Air Date: February 05, 2022

Interviews In This Hour:
Adventure, goofiness and trail snacks: Stories from the dog musher's journal — Getting inside the mind of a dog — Nothing makes losing a dog easy. But a bridge dog can help. — Joy and peace, high up on Dog Mountain

Guests:
Blair Braverman, Quince Mountain, Donna Haraway, Sarah Miller

Further Reading:
Pet Loss Resource Center: Resources for animal loss and grief

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What makes food "authentic"? Do we need to feel close to where it's made? Know the complete history of where it comes from? Be able to diagram the chemistry of how it dances along our taste buds? How can we quantify the romance between eaters and the food they love?

In this hour, we talk about what it means to truly love what you eat and drink — and we ask why it matters.

Original Air Date: June 30, 2018

Interviews In This Hour:
The Frightening Sameness Beneath Hundreds of Flavors — A Little Grammy, A Little Bubbe: A Writer Embodies Family History Through Food — Anyone Can Cook—With the Right Elements — Does 'Selling Out' Make a Difference You Can Taste? — Two Dishes, Two Tastings: A Dinner Party with Simran, Michael, Samin and Josh

Guests:
Simran Sethi, Samin Nosrat, Michael Twitty, Josh Noel

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Sometime in the last couple of years, America’s collective morning routine shifted. We used to start the day with coffee. Now it’s coffee and Wordle. Or Spelling Bee. Or both, plus the crossword. We’re living in a golden age of word games – which is fun, and one way to get just a tiny bit of relief when the world feels out of control. 

Original Air Date: November 09, 2024

Interviews In This Hour:
Getting into the puzzle mindset — Welcome to my crossworld

Guests:
A. J. Jacobs, Anna Shechtman

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