The New Yorker Radio Hour

Sarah Koenig, the host of “Serial,” talks with David Remnick about why her podcast’s success caught her by surprise.  Robin Coste Lewis, who recently won a National Book Award, explains how a devastating injury damaged her brain, but aided her poetry. And Jelani Cobb goes back to his high school. New Yorker Radio Hour listeners, we want to hear from you.  We have a few questions about the show and how you listen to it. The survey takes about twenty minutes, and your feedback will help us make our podcast better.  Take the survey here.

What's the funniest way to spook a horse? Cartoonists Matt Diffee and Emily Flake give us a behind-the-scenes glimpse of how jokes get made. Then, comedian Aziz Ansari critiques Hollywood’s casting habits. Journalist Rukmini Callimachi shares her insight into how ISIS views itself. And the screenwriter and director Charlie Kaufman talks puppet sex and existential dread during a tour of the Whitney Museum.   New Yorker Radio Hour listeners, we want to hear from you.  We have a few questions about the show and how you listen to it. The survey takes about twenty minutes, and your feedback will help us make our podcast better.  Take the survey here.

Lenny Shiller owns some of the most recognizable cars around; his vintage vehicles have been appearing in movies for years (often with Lenny at the wheel). We’ll visit the garage in Brooklyn they call home.  A black woman raised in a white family searches for the biological father she never knew, a man known as Big Brown, while coming to terms with her race. New Yorker Radio Hour listeners, we want to hear from you.  We have a few questions about the show and how you listen to it. The survey takes about twenty minutes, and your feedback will help us make our podcast better.  Take the survey here.

Mark Singer had the temerity to write about Donald Trump, and Trump wanted revenge -- but just who came out on top? Sofia Coppola talks about working with Bill Murray on a Christmas special. And we offer safety tips on how to operate your new drone.   New Yorker Radio Hour listeners, we want to hear from you.  We have a few questions about the show and how you listen to it. The survey takes about twenty minutes, and your feedback will help us make our podcast better.  Take the survey here.

On shows as different as “Jessica Jones,” “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt,” and “Game of Thrones,” characters confront sexual violence in ways never shown before on television. Emily Nussbaum, The New Yorker’s television critic, thinks this is probably a good thing. Robert Glasper is a jazz pianist who explains why sometimes you don’t need to take a solo. And a troubled man takes to the water for a series of adventures, like something out of Mark Twain. New Yorker Radio Hour listeners, we want to hear from you.  We have a few questions about the show and how you listen to it. The survey takes about twenty minutes, and your feedback will help us make our podcast better.  Take the survey here.

High school students in Queens mount a fraught election simulation, Salt Lake City’s openly gay mayor-elect talks about the Mormon Church, and Roger Angell speaks to David Remnick about writing in his tenth decade. And Lena Dunham tries to make plans with Allison Williams in “Let’s Get Drinks” -- it shouldn’t be this hard, should it? New Yorker Radio Hour listeners, we want to hear from you.  We have a few questions about the show and how you listen to it. The survey takes about twenty minutes, and your feedback will help us make our podcast better.  Take the survey here.

Two interviews recorded live at the 2015 New Yorker Festival: Patti Smith talks with David Remnick about how her writing and music are intertwined, with a live performance of “Because the Night”; the fiction writers Jonathan Safran Foer and George Saunders interview each other.   New Yorker Radio Hour listeners, we want to hear from you.  We have a few questions about the show and how you listen to it. The survey takes about twenty minutes, and your feedback will help us make our podcast better.  Take the survey here.

George Booth started drawing cartoons when he was three-and-a-half years old. (His first was a race car stuck in the mud.) Now nearly ninety, he’s been contributing to The New Yorker for over forty-five years. He sat down with Matt Diffee, a fellow cartoonist who considers Booth his hero, to discuss the virtues of dogs versus cats, and other big questions of the cartoon world. “We are at war,” the French President, François Hollande, declared this week, after terrorists attacked Paris last Friday. David Remnick talks with staff writer George Packer about the banlieues of Paris, and how the the Iraq War hovers over Obama’s response to Syria. Sylvia’s, the soul food institution in Harlem, has ridden waves of change, from the riots of the 1960s through the gentrification of our time. Family-owned businesses are increasingly a thing of the past in New York, but Sylvia’s keeps coming out on top. Tayshana Murphy was eighteen when she was killed. She was the victim of a feud between two housing projects that has been going on for decades. Her father, Taylonn Murphy, has dedicated his life to ending the cycle of retribution and creating a safe space for young people in Harlem. New York City is believed to have one of the highest concentrations of endangered or ‘dying’ languages of any place in the world, and Daniel Kaufman, a linguist, wants to try to save them. Judith Thurman introduces us to Kaufman and the Endangered Language Alliance. New Yorker Radio Hour listeners, we want to hear from you.  We have a few questions about the show and how you listen to it. The survey takes about twenty minutes, and your feedback will help us make our podcast better.  Take the survey here.

What is it like to grow up with twenty siblings? When Sue and Hector Badeau considered the lives of children in foster homes, which are often traumatic, they felt that had to do something, and eventually adopted twenty in addition to their two biological kids. Larissa MacFarquhar reports on a family shaped by extreme compassion. When William Finnegan isn’t covering conflicts in places like Mexico, Sudan, and Somalia, he goes surfing. It’s been his hobby for half a century, and, on a recent morning, he gave David Remnick, the editor of the magazine, his first and only surfing lesson. Elizabeth Kolbert is a staff writer who has been writing about the environment for years, and has covered many international talks on climate change. She tells David Remnick why the upcoming U.N. conference in Paris could really matter. Finding money on the ground isn’t a bit of luck for Roger Pasquier—it’s the result of diligent effort and skill. Pasquier, who is an ornithologist, pulls in around a hundred dollars a year in spare change, but he doesn’t do it for the money. New Yorker Radio Hour listeners, we want to hear from you.  We have a few questions about the show and how you listen to it. The survey takes about twenty minutes, and your feedback will help us make our podcast better.  Take the survey here.

The hacker group Lizard Squad ruined Christmas for a lot of people last year when it hacked into Sony and Microsoft servers and rendered new PlayStations and Xboxes temporarily unusable for online gaming. Soon after, the hackers starting selling an inexpensive program that anyone could use to block a Web site. Vauhini Vara, a contributor to The New Yorker’s Web site, talked to Vinnie Omari, a hacker who has been associated with Lizard Squad, about the group. This week concludes Jill Lepore’s three-part story about a woman’s search for the biological father she never knew. He was known as Big Brown, a Greenwich Village street poet whose work Bob Dylan described as “the best poetry I ever heard.” This final installment of “The Search for Big Brown” explores the connection among Brown, Dylan, and rap. David Remnick, the editor of The New Yorker, speaks with Gloria Steinem about Hillary Clinton, Black Lives Matter, and a fundamental question for activists: which comes first, changing hearts or changing laws? Steinem also talks about her new memoir, “My Life on the Road,” and why she decided to change her book’s title. And staff writer Rebecca Mead discusses two of her current obsessions: the soundtrack to the Broadway hit “Hamilton,” and a classic novel by a man without children that offers surprising insights on motherhood. New Yorker Radio Hour listeners, we want to hear from you.  We have a few questions about the show and how you listen to it. The survey takes about twenty minutes, and your feedback will help us make our podcast better.  Take the survey here.