alchemical recipes

The Historical Lessons Embedded in Alchemical Recipes

Articles

Pamela Smith's science history students spend a semester taking medieval alchemical recipes and re-creating them in a lab.More

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Drug Store Alchemy in the Ozarks

crystal meth
Audio

When anthropologist Jason Pine traveled to rural Missouri, he wound up spending a lot of time observing underground meth labs. And he came to a startling conclusion: that the meth cooks of the Ozarks are today’s alchemists.

Length: 
12:31

Was Sir Isaac Newton 'The Last of the Magicians'?

Isaac Newton
Articles

Isaac Newton wrote more than a million words on alchemy over his lifetime, conducting decades of alchemical experiments. But he did it all in secret. Why? The question fascinates historian Bill Newman.

Length: 
10:58

Tommy Orange on 'A Confederacy Of Dunces'

Tommy Orange
Bookmarks

Tommy Orange says he wasn't much of a reader in his early years. But a chance encounter with an absurd, experimental novel by John Kennedy Toole showed him a path to writing a novel that was truly his own.

Length: 
2:55

Jericho Brown on 'The Witches Of Eastwick'

Jericho Brown
Bookmarks

As a black, gay poet, Jericho Brown considers it “hilarious” that he discovered sex through one of the whitest writers in American history — John Updike. 

Length: 
3:11

The Book Burning That Brought All Of Los Angeles Together

Articles

Author Susan Orlean on how the worst library fire in American history brought an entire city together to save 700,000 books.

Length: 
13:52

Reading As Our First Window To The World

girl reading
Articles

New York Times Book Review Editor Pamela Paul on why reading — and more importantly, a deep connection to when, why, where and how of what we read — is so important at every age. 

Length: 
10:00

A Book Club On The Day Of The Book Choosing

Piles of books
Articles

Who says reading has to be a solitary experience? Producer Shannon Henry Kleiber brings us along to her yearly reading ritual: a gathering of super smart, funny women who make an entire reading plan for the next 12 months — together.

Length: 
6:01

Anne Lamott on 'Pippi Longstocking'

Anne Lamott
Bookmarks

Writer Anne Lamott says that the children’s classic made her feel like there was room in the world for imaginative, adventurous girls who just might wear mismatched knee socks. 

Length: 
3:35

The Global Garage Sale

tea set
Audio

Journalist Adam Minter wrote a whole book about what happens to our things when we don’t want them anymore. It’s called “Secondhand: Travels in the New Global Garage Sale” Angelo asked him: why don’t we think more about the things we donate?

Length: 
12:12

A Museum Of The Mundane

The Museum of Everyday Life is in Clare Dolan’s barn.
Articles

"Museum of Everyday Life" founder and curator Clare Dolan calls it "an ongoing, revolutionary experiment" — a celebration of "the mysterious delight embedded in the banal but beloved objects we touch everyday.

Length: 
12:12