Fresh Air

Maureen Corrigan, noted literary critic and professor, gives a brisk review of George Saunders. Julian Barnes, Booker Prize winner and novelist, discusses his hybrid final book, mortality, and mourning. Liz Moore, bestselling novelist and MFA director, talks about addiction, missing siblings, adapting novels for TV, and writing routines. Short, conversational segments cover craft, grief, and adaptations.

Guillermo del Toro, Oscar-winning filmmaker known for gothic fantasy and empathy, discusses why Frankenstein gripped him as a child. He talks about structuring the film, centering the creature’s perspective, religious parallels, and designing a new creature look. He also shares personal stories about mortality and his firm refusal to use generative AI.

Brooke Nevils, former NBC producer and author of Unspeakable Things, recounts her Sochi-era experience and why it took years to tell. She describes the hotel-night encounter, the power dynamics that complicated naming it, and the career risks of reporting it. She also reflects on reclaiming her story and preparing to talk with her children about hard truths.

David Gelles, New York Times climate reporter who covers climate policy, business, and energy, gives a plainspoken tour of how U.S. climate policy is unraveling and why global leaders at Davos are alarmed. He chronicles corporate retreat from climate pledges, rapid rollbacks in clean-energy incentives and EPA priorities, and the international fallout from withdrawing from Paris.

Jason Zengerle, New Yorker staff writer and author of Hated by All the Right People, maps Tucker Carlson’s rise from cable underdog to a dominant right-wing voice. He traces Carlson’s shift toward more extreme rhetoric, high-profile interviews and platforming choices, influence on Trump and Republican politics, and how his moves reshaped conservative media.

Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Heather Ann Thompson talks about the 1984 New York City subway shooting, when Bernhard Goetz, a white man, shot four Black teenagers. "We are watching someone tell us exactly who they are, exactly what they did, and it will not matter. Up will become down, down will become up. And that also felt very, very familiar to where we are today," she tells Tonya Mosley. Thompson argues reactions to the Goetz case helped fuel a politics of racial resentment that reshaped criminal justice, national policy and media narratives. Her book is 'Fear and Fury: The Reagan Eighties, the Bernie Goetz Shootings, and the Rebirth of White Rage.'Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Justin Chang, film critic, offers crisp takes on the German film Sound of Falling. Quiara Alegría Hudes, Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright and novelist, discusses her new novel about a mother who leaves to find herself. Rachel Eliza Griffiths, poet and memoirist, speaks about her memoir, trauma, dissociative identity, and caregiving after Salman Rushdie’s attack. Multiple short conversations span memory, art, and difficult choices.

Mel Brooks, EGOT-winning comedian and filmmaker known for razor-sharp satire and big musical numbers. Justin Chang, film critic at The New Yorker, gives a review segment. They discuss Brooks’s origins, bold boundary-pushing comedy, the creation of Springtime for Hitler and The Producers, his love of lavish production, and a fresh take on the German film Sound of Falling.

Quiara Alegría Hudes, a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and author of The White Hot, discusses her captivating debut novel centered on a mother named April seeking self-discovery. She explores the contradictions of female agency in literature, contrasting it with male narratives of spiritual quests. Hudes reflects on her family's migration from Puerto Rico and her mother's spiritual practices. Literary critic Maureen Corrigan reviews John Banville's ‘Even the Dead,’ adding to the rich tapestry of storytelling and identity explored in their conversation.

In this thought-provoking discussion, law professor Emmanuel Mauleón, who studies policing and race, and Elizabeth Goitein from the Brennan Center for Justice, an expert in civil liberties, delve into the use of federal immigration agents in Minneapolis. They explore the misuse of federal power, the potential for tyranny when military forces act domestically, and the risks faced by individuals filming ICE. The conversation importantly highlights the chilling effects of militarization and the historical connections to white nationalism impacting immigration enforcement.