Fresh Air

NPR

Fresh Air from WHYY, the Peabody Award-winning weekday magazine of contemporary arts and issues, is one of public radio's most popular programs. Hosted by Terry Gross, the show features intimate conversations with today's biggest luminaries. Subscribe to Fresh Air Plus! You'll be supporting the unique show you can't get enough of - and you can listen sponsor-free. Learn more at plus.npr.org/freshair

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Philadelphia, PA

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NPR

WHYY

Description:

Fresh Air from WHYY, the Peabody Award-winning weekday magazine of contemporary arts and issues, is one of public radio's most popular programs. Hosted by Terry Gross, the show features intimate conversations with today's biggest luminaries. Subscribe to Fresh Air Plus! You'll be supporting the unique show you can't get enough of - and you can listen sponsor-free. Learn more at plus.npr.org/freshair

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@nprfreshair

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English

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635 Massachusetts Av. NW, Washington, DC 20001 (202) 513-2300

Episodes

Best Of: When A Doctor Becomes A Patient / Lizzy Caplan

2/4/2023
After working as a neurosurgeon for over 40 years, Dr. Henry Marsh was diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer. The cancer led him to reflect on doctor/patient relationships, his own mortality, and why he'd consider the possibility of hastening the end through medically-assisted death. His new book is And Finally. Also, we'll hear from actor Lizzy Caplan. In the series Fleishman Is in Trouble, she plays a character who's having questions about her marriage, motherhood, and what happened to...

Duration:00:48:43

Author Julie Otsuka / Remembering 'Nation' Editor Victor Navasky

2/3/2023
After losing much of her memory to dementia, one of the things the main character in the novel The Swimmers remembers is being forced into an incarceration camp for Japanese Americans during World War II. Author Julie Otsuka talks about the novel and her own family's experience in Japanese incarceration camps. Also, we remember Victor Navasky, the longtime editor and eventual publisher of The Nation. He also wrote the book Naming Names, now considered a classic, about the Hollywood 10 and...

Duration:00:41:19

Inside The Haqqani Terrorist Network

2/2/2023
Journalist Jere Van Dyk has spent years in Afghanistan and Pakistan, where he got to know leaders of the Haqqani network, responsible for many suicide bombings and kidnappings. His new book is Without Borders. Also, jazz critic Kevin Whitehead a new anthology of Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis and Shirley Scott Cookbook sessions.

Duration:00:46:09

How 'Modern-Day Slavery' Powers The Rechargeable Battery Economy

2/1/2023
Phone and electric car batteries are made with cobalt mined in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Cobalt Red author Siddharth Kara describes the conditions as a "horror show." Justin Chang reviews the Belgian film Close.

Duration:00:44:59

Actor Lizzy Caplan

1/31/2023
The series Fleishman Is in Trouble is about marriage, parenthood, and middle age. Lizzy Caplan plays Libby, a mom and journalist who is struggling with identity since moving to the suburbs. Caplan's other films and TV shows include Mean Girls, Party Down, and Freaks and Geeks. She was nominated for an Emmy for her work in the series Masters of Sex. She spoke with Fresh Air's Ann Marie Baldonado. Also, David Bianculli reviews the series Shrinking, starring Jason Segel and Harrison Ford.

Duration:00:45:25

When A Doctor Becomes The Patient

1/30/2023
Neurosurgeon Dr. Henry Marsh describes how his own cancer diagnoses led him to reflect on the doctor-patient relationship, his own mortality and medically-assisted death. He'll talk about his memoir, And Finally, and about his trips to Ukraine performing surgery and working to improve the country's medical system.

Duration:00:45:35

Best Of: Human Trafficking After Katrina / The Waco Siege

1/28/2023
F. Murray Abraham won the 1985 Best Actor Oscar for Amadeus. Now he co-stars in The White Lotus as Bert, a chauvinistic patriarch on vacation in Italy with his son and grandson. We talk about his career and life, and the lessons he learned along the way. David Bianculli reviews Rian Johnson's new series Poker Face, starring Natasha Lyonne. Author Jeff Guinn has written about cult leaders Charles Manson and Jim Jones. In the book, Waco, he draws on new interviews with federal agents and...

Duration:00:47:50

Sun Records Founder Sam Phillips / Crosby & Nash

1/27/2023
This month marks the centennial of the birth of Sam Phillips, the record producer who discovered Elvis and produced his first records. We're listening back to our interview with Phillips, who founded Sun Records in Memphis and also launched the careers of Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash and Roy Orbison. Also David Crosby and Graham Nash tell the story of how they met and started making music together as Crosby, Stills, & Nash. Crosby died last week. John Powers reviews the new...

Duration:00:46:29

How Social Media's Role Was Left Out Of The Jan. 6 Report

1/26/2023
Washington Post technology reporter Drew Harwell says the unpublished report shows that tech companies didn't respond to employees' warnings about violent rhetoric on their platforms.

Duration:00:44:22

Revisiting The Waco Siege, 30 Years Later

1/25/2023
Author Jeff Guinn has written about cult leaders Charles Manson and Jim Jones. In the book, Waco, he draws on new interviews with federal agents and surviving Branch Davidians to revisit the 1993 confrontation, which left scores of people dead, including more than 20 children. Also, TV critic David Bianculli reviews the new Peacock series Poker Face, starring Natasha Lyonne.

Duration:00:45:44

'White Lotus' Actor F. Murray Abraham

1/24/2023
F. Murray Abraham won the 1985 Best Actor Oscar for Amadeus. Now he co-stars in The White Lotus as Bert, a chauvinistic patriarch on vacation in Italy with his son and grandson. We talk about his career and life, and the lessons he learned along the way.

Duration:00:45:14

Forced Labor & Rebuilding After Natural Disasters In The U.S.

1/23/2023
After Hurricane Katrina in 2006, hundreds of workers from India were promised jobs and green cards in what labor organizer Saket Soni calls "one of the largest cases of forced labor in modern U.S. history." He tells their story in The Great Escape.

Duration:00:45:36

Best Of: The Status Of Abortion Rights / Novelist Jonathan Escoffery

1/21/2023
We'll talk about the latest developments and strategies in the fight over abortion rights with Mary Ziegler, who has written several books on the law, history and politics of abortion. Her new book, Roe: The History of a National Obsession, is about how abortion has remained at the center of America's culture wars and political battles. Also, we'll hear from writer Jonathan Escoffery. His semi-autobiographical collection of stories, If I Survive You, is on our book critic Maureen Corrigan's...

Duration:00:48:39

Jazz-Pop Duo Rachael & Vilray

1/20/2023
Rachael & Vilray's new album, I Love a Love Song, features them with a jazz ensemble. Most of their songs sound like something you would have heard on the radio in the '30s and '40s. Rachael is also the lead singer of the group Lake Street Dive. They spoke with Sam Briger in 2020. Also, Maureen Corrigan reviews the novel This Other Eden, by Paul Harding, and Justin Chang reviews the new film Women Talking.

Duration:00:44:21

Is The U.S. Gov't Designating Too Many Documents As Classified'?

1/19/2023
Historian Matthew Connelly says government records are marked as "classified" three times every second — and many of them will never be declassified. We talk about what that means for the public and how this might change. His new book is The Declassification Engine. Also, John Powers reviews the French courtroom drama film Saint Omer by Alice Diop.

Duration:00:46:17

What's Next For The New GOP-Led House?

1/18/2023
New York Times congressional correspondent Catie Edmondson says the new Republican-controlled House of Representatives will likely leverage their subpoena power to enact vengeance on the Biden administration. "The next two years is not going to be defined by governing and legislating. It is going to be defined by obstruction and clashes of personalities and investigation," she says.

Duration:00:45:05

The Status Of Abortion Rights In America

1/17/2023
Legal historian Mary Ziegler has chronicled the legal, political and cultural battles around abortion, and says the debate is far from over: "We're at a moment of almost unprecedented uncertainty in the United States when it comes to abortion," Zielger says. Her book is Roe: The History of a National Obsession.

Duration:00:46:05

A Journey Below The Mason-Dixon Line

1/16/2023
Princeton African American Studies professor Imani Perry says the South can be seen as an "origin point" for the way the nation operates. Her book, South to America, reflects on the region's history and traces the steps of an enslaved ancestor. "The South in some ways becomes the repository for the nation's sins, right?" she says. "And then it allows the rest of the country to conceive of itself as relatively pristine." South to America won the National Book Award for nonfiction in...

Duration:00:46:58

Best Of: Equity In Sports / 'Fleishman Is In Trouble' Creator

1/14/2023
Equal sports opportunities for women was mandated 50 years ago by title IX legislation. Champion runner Lauren Fleshman explains why getting access to a sports world built by men, for men and boys isn't working for girls and women. Her book, Good For a Girl, is a feminist critique of the sports world and a memoir about her own running career. Also, Taffy Brodesser-Akner, creator, writer and showrunner of FX's series Fleishman Is In Trouble on Hulu talks about divorce, middle age, and dating...

Duration:00:49:40

Remembering Novelist Russell Banks

1/13/2023
We remember novelist Russell Banks, whose working-class background inspired much of his work. His best known novels were adapted into films, including Affliction, The Sweet Hereafter, and Continental Drift. We'll listen back to portions of our interviews with him. Also, we're revisiting our interview with photographer Larry Sultan, whose photographic memoir of growing up in California in the '50s and '60s is the basis of a new Broadway show starring Nathan Lane. Maureen Corrigan reviews...

Duration:00:46:41

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