Author Robin Sloan has written short stories and worked for Twitter. His new book brings those two worlds together to argue that embracing digital culture doesn’t mean you have to give up the treasured books — and values — of the past.
http://www.npr.org/2012/10/09/162233599/mr-penumbra-bridges-the-digital-divide
Tagged with npr morning edition books writing publishing book:author=robin sloan
Most people’s after-midnight mishaps are nothing compared with what David K. Randall describes in his new book. From people committing murder while supposedly sleepwalking, to what sleep was like in medieval times, Dreamland provides a lively overview of the world’s most popular nocturnal pastime.
http://www.npr.org/2012/08/07/158087512/dreamland-open-your-eyes-to-the-science-of-sleep
Tagged with npr sleep book:title=dreamland
Instapaper is a little app that started out as a side project. Now it’s a thriving one-man business. We talk to Marco Arment, Instapaper’s founder and sole employee, about the app economy.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/01/31/146152273/the-tuesday-podcast-the-app-economy
Tagged with instapaper npr
We’re used to thinking of "obesity" in physical terms — unhealthful weight that clogs our arteries and strains our hearts. But there’s also an obesity of information that clogs our eyes and our minds and our inboxes: unhealthful information deep-fried in our own preconceptions.
In The Information Diet, open-source-Internet activist Clay Johnson makes the case for more "conscious consumption" of news and information. Johnson, the founder of Blue State Digital, which provided the online strategy for the 2008 Obama campaign, talks with NPR’s Scott Simon about ways to slim and stretch our minds.
http://www.npr.org/2012/01/14/145101748/is-it-time-for-you-to-go-on-an-information-diet
You rarely see lard on menus. There aren’t shelves and shelves of it in every supermarket. In this country, we’ve sort of lost touch with the once beloved pig fat. On today’s podcast, we ask â who killed lard?
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/01/06/144806987/the-friday-podcast-who-killed-lard
You know it’s a bad sign when the bride texts her guests to ask if anyone has a metallic taste in their mouth.
That was Morning Edition Producer Selena Simmons-Duffin’s first clue that she’d been struck by a weird food syndrome known as Pine Mouth.
Tagged with pine mouth taste disturbance food npr
In his book Extra Virginity, Tom Mueller explains why you can’t believe everything you read on olive oil labels. Much of the "extra-virgin" olive oil sold in the U.S. has actually been mixed with lower-priced, lower-grade oils and artificial coloring, he says.
http://www.npr.org/2011/12/12/143154180/losing-virginity-olive-oils-scandalous-industry?ps=cprs
For reasons that remain mostly mysterious, the note we call "B flat" does the oddest things. It aggravates alligators, it lurks in the stairwell of an office building, and it emanates from a supermassive black hole 250 million light years from Earth.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7442915
Tagged with robert krulwich sound npr
Russian has a word for light blue and a word for dark blue, but no word for a general shade of blue. So when interpreters translate "blue" into Russian, they’re forced to pick a shade. It’s one of the many complexities of translation David Bellos explores in his new book, Is That a Fish in Your Ear?
http://www.npr.org/2011/11/14/142309214/meaning-of-everything-often-lost-in-translation?sc=tw
Tagged with language translation npr
http://n.pr/n1Fa1Y video ("book trailer") http://youtu.be/ql4oZtLruFE
Tagged with npr talk of the nation art spiegelman comics maus metamaus books
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