Tired of reading? Need something to do on one of those 14 hour flights? Take a listen to these!
On this page you'll find some of my all time favorite podcasts. Some are short stories, some are poetry, and some are anecdotes and discussions of the most randomly amusing sorts. I've tried to specify the degree of humor vs. seriousness in each. Let me know if you want specific recommendations. And if you really enjoy these, you can also bring a flashdrive to school and I'll give you a whole folder of favorites to listen to....
On this page you'll find some of my all time favorite podcasts. Some are short stories, some are poetry, and some are anecdotes and discussions of the most randomly amusing sorts. I've tried to specify the degree of humor vs. seriousness in each. Let me know if you want specific recommendations. And if you really enjoy these, you can also bring a flashdrive to school and I'll give you a whole folder of favorites to listen to....
Lost in Translation
Stories of what can and cannot be translated. A short, non-athletic, bespectacled East Asian studies major who couldn't make his high school basketball team finds himself in the NBA as the personal translator for the first-ever Chinese pro basketball superstar, Yao Ming. Plus, a Palestinian man teaches Hebrew classes in the Gaza strip to Palestinians eager to learn news from the other side of the checkpoint. Click below to download or here to listen online.
Tobias Wolff reads "Emergency" by Denis Johnson
Need a good laugh? A good laugh that leaves you perplexed and on second thought, perhaps a touch horrified? A man walks into a hospital with a knife sticking out of one eye, and that's the most normal occurrence in this story! Warning: mature content.
Jennifer Egan reads "The Reverse Bug" by Lore Segal
Learning a language. We've all been there. But when you put a dozen immigrants from a dozen different countries in one room to learn one language, "The Reverse Bug" ensues.
Mary Gaitskill reads Vladimir Nabokov's "Signs and Symbols"
Shakespeare said it first, "But men may construe things after their fashion,/Clean from the purpose of the things themselves." In "Signs and Symbols," Nabokov enters an incurably deranged mind's escapades in interpreting the signs and symbols of everyday existence.
T. Coraghessan Boyle reads Tobias Wolff's "Bullet in the Brain"
What happens in the time between the firing of a gun and the hit? What happens to a viscous critic who has spent his life ridiculing others in the time between the firing of a gun and the moment the bullet finds its target? I promise it is not at all what you'd expect.
Somewhere Out There
Of all the 6 and a half billion people in the world, what are the odds that any two people are a real match? Stories from people who know they've beat the odds, and the lengths they've gone to do it. Available below or click here to listen online.
Deception
Lies, liars, and lie catchers. This hour of Radiolab asks if it's possible for anyone to lead a life without deception.
We consult a cast of characters, from pathological liars to lying snakes to drunken psychiatrists, to try and understand the strange power of lying to yourself and others. Click below to download or here to listen online.
We consult a cast of characters, from pathological liars to lying snakes to drunken psychiatrists, to try and understand the strange power of lying to yourself and others. Click below to download or here to listen online.