To the Best of Our Knowledge
Each week, To the Best of Our Knowledge brings you two hours of in-depth interviews with nationally and internationally-known guests whose passion for new ideas will challenge and engage. Hosted by Jim Fleming, this interview magazine is thoughtful and penetrating, and features fascinating topics and guests.
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TTBOOK: Future Perfect: Our Earth
Thomas Friedman thinks our current crop of environmental initiatives do not add up to a green revolution. Jane Goodall talks about her decades of work with chimpanzees. Hip hop artist DJ Spooky created an audio portrait of climate change. Geir Haarde says Iceland is 80 percent indepen …
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TTBOOK: The Art of Noise
Noah Vawter designed a portable listening device that converts the sounds around you into a form of music. Bart Kosko explains the science of noise. Paul Hegarty is really into Noise/Music. Caryl Owen talks about the condition known as tinnitus. Anne D. LeClaire spends two days a m …
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TTBOOK: Future Perfect: Our Money
Muhammad Yunus founded the Grameen Bank which pioneered the practice of micro-lending. Reverend Billy and the Stop Shopping Gospel Choir Jeffrey Sachs says we need a new economic model rooted in an environmentally sustainable future. Naomi Klein is a critic of globalization. Greg …
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TTBOOK: Dumbing Down, Smartening Up
Susan Jacoby gives several frightening examples of the way American culture is dumbing itself down. George Saunders created Megaphone Guy and discusses his effect on the media. Chris Bachelder is the author of "Bear v. Shark: The Novel." Andrew Keen regrets the absence of any edit …
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TTBOOK: Future Perfect: Our Computers
Nicholas Negroponte is out to change the world by giving laptops to kids. Lawrence Lessig says current copyright law stifles creativity. Jason Rohrer makes video games with heart and soul, not flashy graphics. Sherry Turkle talks about how we develop relationships with personal robo …
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TTBOOK: Shakespeare: Where There's a Will
Marjorie Garber writes about how Shakespeare makes modern culture and modern culture makes Shakespeare. Jess Winfield's novel's subtitle says it all. Mark Anderson argues the Earl of Oxford was really the author of Shakespeare's works. Shakespeare biographer Stephen Greenblatt isn't p …
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TTBOOK: Facing Time
Alexander Rose describes the Clock of the Long Now. David Toomey talks about the research and experiments on time travel. Lera Auerbach has an obsession with time which has impacted her life and music. Carl Honore explains how the Slowness movement got started and how it's developed i …
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TTBOOK: Teen Angst
David Bainbridge thinks that a prolonged adolescence is one of our greatest evolutionary advantages. Frank Warren is the founder of the blog PostSecret. Rebecca Walker talks about her unconventional upbringing. Eugene Mirman is the author of an outlandish self-help send-up. Laura Mil …
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TTBOOK: Lust for Life Lists
Jack Pendarvis has written a rather idiosyncratic list. Tom Moon introduces several of his 1000 must-hear recordings. Jay Parini selected books that changed America. David Thomson chose 1000 films he didn't hate to write about. Olivia Gentile's biography describes the world's top …
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TTBOOK: Elementary Holmes
Mitch Cullen has written a novel about a 93 year old Holmes. Laurie King imagines a married Holmes. Leslie Klinger edits the "New Annotated Sherlock Holmes." P.D. James created a detective who has become almost as popular as Holmes. Victoria Laurie writes about a psychic detectiv …
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TTBOOK: Can White Guys Be Hip?
John Leland wrote the history of Hip. Gary Giddins talks about Bing Crosby. Nick Hornby ponders the hipness of white guys. Damali Ayo is a performance artist. Musician Chuck E. Weiss is profiled. Greil Marcus has some thoughts on hipness. Stanley Crouch discusses authent …
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TTBOOK: Woody Tasch Special
Woody Tasch suggests "slow money" is the new direction for socially conscious investors.
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TTBOOK: Is Religion Dangerous?
Sam Harris says believing in Allah or Jesus or the God of Abraham makes no more sense than believing in Zeus. Karen Armstrong says that traditions from Confucianism to Judaism emerged as responses to the rampant violence of their time. Azhar Usman makes humor out of our stereotypes about M …
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TTBOOK: Talking Pictures
Eric Lax has had regular conversations with Woody Allen over the past 36 years. Jeanine Basinger wrote about how the movie studios manufactured stars from the 1930s to the 1950s. J.J. Murphy discusses how independent screenplays have used a distinct approach to cinematic storytelling. …
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TTBOOK: Genre Busters
Judith Freeman wrote about the life and loves of Raymond Chandler. Michael Chabon thinks all fiction is a sort of genre fiction. Michael Dirda defends the joys of reading for pleasure. M.C. Beaton and Matthew Prichard love a good English detective novel. Richard Price thinks the o …
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TTBOOK: The Wonders of Physics
Richard Muller explains the context within which scientific policy decision must be made. Robert Laughlin thinks that physicists are an eccentric bunch. Mark Oliver Everett, lead singer of The Eels, talks about his physicist father Hugh Everett. Rebecca Stott wrote a thriller set partly in Isaa …
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TTBOOK: "The President from Illinois "
Orville Vernon Burton demonstrates the parallels between Abraham Lincoln and Barack Obama. Doris Kearns Goodwin talks about her best-selling biography, "Team of Rivals." John Stauffer discusses whether or not Lincoln was a racist. Drew Gilpin Faust says that Civil War deaths transfomed th …
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TTBOOK: "Alone Time"
John Cacioppo Says loneliness is a body signal like hunger. Robert Kull chose to spend a year in solitude. Bill Friskics-Warren introduces some music about lonliness. Thomas Dumm explains the dangers of a society filled with lonely people. Kathleen Norris has a historical context …
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TTBOOK: "The Dismal Science"
2008 Nobel Prize in Economics winner Paul Krugman talks with Steve Paulson. Stephen Marglin explains why insurance undermines community. Katy Lederer writes poetry inspired by economics. Steven Levitt has an alternate view on what drives the economy. Catherine Austin Fitts advo …
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TTBOOK: "A Good Death?"
David Rieff has written a sobering account of his mother Susan Sontag's last days. Judith Strasser recorded this commentary in response to the Rieff story. David Shields wrote about his father who doesn't give death the time of day. Pauline Chen says her medical training left her ill …
To the Best of Our Knowledge
