System of a Down singer Serj Tankian covers fleeing the Lebanese Civil War as a child, advocating for recognition of the Armenian Genocide, and why his band hasn't made a new album since 2005.
Our culture is full of stories about what it's like to be young: to find yourself, to fall in love, to leave home. But there aren't nearly as many scripts for what middle age might look like, especially for women. This week, host Brittany Luse is joined by author and filmmaker Miranda July, whose new novel 'All Fours' dives deep into the mystery and miracle of being a middle aged woman.
Want to be featured on the show? Record a question via voice memo for 'Hey Brittany' and send it to ibam@npr.org.
The Bikini Kill frontwoman pioneered the "riot grrrl" movement in the 1990s. "I thought of myself as a feminist performance artist who was in a punk band," Hanna says.
Daniel Olivas's novel puts a new spin on the age-old Frankenstein story. In this retelling, 12 million "reanimated" people provide a cheap workforce for the United States...and face a very familiar type of bigotry.
The WNBA star, who is six feet, nine inches, says she felt like a zoo animal in prison. "The guards would literally come open up the little peep hole, look in, and then I would hear them laughing."
Climate journalist Zoë Schlanger says research suggests that plants are indeed "intelligent" in complex ways that challenge our understanding of agency and consciousness. Her book is The Light Eaters.
Griner's new memoir recounts being humiliated by guards, of the pain from squeezing her 6-foot-9 frame into cramped beds and cage, and cutting her locs because it was so cold that her hair froze.
The economist made a name for herself using data to challenge the accepted rules of pregnancy. Now, she's returning to the topic with a book on how to navigate its complications.
Dame Judi Dench has played everyone from the writer Iris Murdoch to M in the James Bond films. But among the roles the actress is most closely associated, are Shakespeare's heroines and some of his villians.
Amongst those roles are the star-crossed lover Juliet, the comical Titania and the tragic Lady Macbeth. Now she's reflecting on that work, and Shakespeare's work in Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays The Rent.
The book is comprised of Dench's conversations with her friend, the actor and director Brendan O'Hea.
For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org.
This week on the podcast, we're revisiting a conversation we had with Ava Chin about her book, Mott Street. Through decades of painstaking research, the fifth-generation New Yorker discovered the stories of how her ancestors bore and resisted the weight of the Chinese Exclusion laws in the U.S. – and how the legacy of that history still affects her family today.
Host Brittany Luse sits down with Arionne Nettles, author of We Are the Culture: Black Chicago's Influence on Everything. Arionne shares how Black media in Chicago influenced the way Black Americans see themselves and why the city deserves to be called 'the heart of Black America.'
Walters was the first woman to co-anchor a national news show on prime time television. "The path she cut is one that many of us have followed," says biographer Susan Page, author of The Rulebreaker.
