This is an encore presentation.

This is an encore presentation.

Esi Edugyan is the author of the book, Washington Black. The novel won the prestigious Giller Prize and was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. The paperback edition of the book is out now.

This is an encore presentation.

This is an encore presentation.

Emily Nemen’s The Cactus League, as the title tells us, is set in the Arizona desert, around Scottsdale, during spring training for major league baseball. The novel is narrated by a sportscaster and while nominally the story of Jason Goodyear, the star outfielder for the fictional Los Angeles Lions, Goodyear’s story is interspersed with the stories of other richly drawn characters -- the batting coach, aging sports agent, the players, owners, ballpark staff and the hangers on.

Imperiled Ocean is an exploration of the earth's last wild frontier, filled with high-stakes stories that explore a vast territory undergoing tremendous change. Journalist Laura Trethewey set out in 2015 on 'an extended listening tour' to hear some of these stories. She learned that for reasons of money… migrants die, cruise ships steer around the law, and plastic is made, sold and discarded faster than it can be collected and disposed of.

This is an encore presentation.

This is an encore presentation

This is an encore presentation.

This is an encore presentation.

This is an encore presentation.

Trump and His Generals is Peter Bergen's riveting account of what happened when the unstoppable force of President Trump met the immovable object of America's national security establishment--the CIA, the State Department, and, above all, the Pentagon. If there is a real "deep state" in DC, it is the national security community, with its deep-rooted culture and hierarchy.

This is an encore presentation.

In America, domestic violence accounts for 15 percent of all violent crime, and yet it remains locked in silence, even as its tendrils reach unseen into so many of our most pressing national issues, from our economy to our education system, from mass shootings to mass incarceration to the #MeToo movement.

This interview was originally broadcast in April, 2019.

A literary thriller, Bearskin is set in the wilds of the Appalachian Mountains. Rice Moore is the caretaker of this nature preserve, a man running from a sordid past, only to face a fresh crime perpetrated in his new stomping grounds: black market bear poaching. With his past transgression gaining on him, Moore goes deep into the woods in his attempt to stop the killings.

Like so many young American couples, Chris Ingraham and his wife Briana were having a difficult time making ends meet as they tried to raise their twin boys in the East Coast suburbs. One day, Chris – in his role as a “data guy” reporter at the Washington Post – stumbled on a study that would change his life. It was a ranking of America’s 3,000+ counties from ugliest to most scenic. He quickly scrolled to the bottom of the list and gleefully wrote the words “The absolute worst place to live in America is (drumroll please) … Red Lake County, Minn.”

In 1942, the Gestapo sent out an urgent transmission: "She is the most dangerous of all Allied spies. We must find and destroy her." Their target was Virginia Hall, a Baltimore socialite who talked her way into Special Operations Executive, the spy organization dubbed Winston Churchill's "Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare."

This encore interview was originally broadcast in June, 2019.

This interview was originally broadcast in August, 2019.

This interview originally aired in February, 2019.

This encore interview originally aired in February, 2019.

This encore program originally aired in January, 2019.

This encore interview was first broadcast in January, 2019.

Daniel Mason's novel, The Winter Soldier, follows Lucius Krzelewski, a 22-year-old medical student living in Vienna when World War I breaks out. Eager to do his part and allured by the vision of the noble, battlefield medic, Lucius enlists. But when he arrives on the front line, the reality of his situation comes into focus: the other doctors have fled, only a strange and secretive nurse remains, and Lucius has never even held a scalpel. A story of war and family, love and history, The Winter Soldier is a gripping novel equally stocked with mystery, excitement, and a brutal history.

This encore interview originally aired in January, 2019.

Marie Colvin was one of the foremost war reporters of her generation, risking her life covering conflicts in Chechnya, East Timor, Kosovo, and the Middle East. Killed in an artillery attack in Syria in 2012, Colvin left behind a profound record of the victims of wars that she covered, and a reputation as an unflinching and nonconformist reporter.

This encore interview was originally broadcast in October, 2017.

This encore conversation first was broadcast in October, 2017.

The grizzly bear is one of North America’s few remaining large predators. With a diminished range, grizzlies are again spreading across the West. But in the valleys where once they were king, grizzlies are finding the landscape they’d known for eons utterly changed by this millennia’s most dominant animal: humans.

This interview originally aired in November, 2018.

This Reader's Corner interview was originally broadcast in November, 2018.

America’s constitutional system of checks and balances has endured for more than two centuries. This is due, in part, to two unwritten political norms: respectful tolerance between opposing political parties, and a measure of restraint by the administration in power. Yet at contentious times in our history, those guardrails of democracy have been put to the test.

For decades, North Korea has operated as a prime example of a “hermit kingdom” – a nation ruled by a despotic family regime, where propaganda and historical, political, and economic theatre are a daily ritual for the country’s 25 million citizens.

This encore interview originally aired in October, 2018.

Jonathan Evison is a writer whose work frequently appears on the New York Times bestseller list.

This encore Reader's Corner interview first aired in September, 2018.

What if you could take a road trip and visit all your heroes, door-to-door? What if you could share a meal? And what if you could do it right in their own homes? Our guest today embarked on just such a pilgrimage.

This interview was first broadcast in August, 2018.

This encore program originally aired in September, 2018.

This encore interview originally aired in July, 2018.

This encore program was originally broadcast in November, 2016.

This encore Reader's Corner interview originally broadcast in June, 2018.

This interview originally aired in August, 2010.

This encore program originally aired in June, 2018.

The state of public education is a constant concern these days -- for families, for legislators, for teachers and experts. Many are questioning methods embraced by American school systems as we see other countries besting us, particularly in math and science.

When it comes to getting cash to make ends meet, many Americans don’t take their business to the local bank. Instead, they rely on alternative financial systems such as check cashing stores and payday lenders. Despite high interest rates and sometimes exorbitant fees, these services fill a vital need for those living paycheck to paycheck, and who, for a variety of reasons, distrust banks.