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This American Life (Stories)

  • Now playing on KUAZ 89.1 Tucson, AZ 59 minutes left
  • Listen locally on KCRW 89.9 Tomorrow at 11am (Pacific)
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  • Host: Ira Glass
  • Ira Glass combines documentary journalism with other kinds of storytelling: radio monologues, found tapes, short fiction and interviews. Sidestepping sensationalism, Ira and his staff serve up narrative epics that pinpoint, in the tradition of Studs Terkel, the unusual and poetic in the everyday.
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  • Genres: Stories
  • Location: Chicago, IL
  • Language: English
  • Networks: NPR, PRI
Last updated 44 days ago Update program info

#346: Home Alone

Mon, Nov 17 Listen
A 79-year-old woman dies in Los Angeles. She's lived alone for decades. No one knows her, or her next of kin. There's a body to be buried, stuff to get rid of. Who takes charge? This and other stories about what happens when people are left alone.

#368: Who Do You Think You Are?

Mon, Nov 10 Listen
This week we bring you stories of privilege, and the lengths some will go to to maintain it. One woman's fight to stop a celebrity from breaking her city's parking laws. And a collection of stories from the Studs Terkel Hard Times radio series.

#319: And the Call Was Coming from the Basement

Mon, Nov 3 Listen
For Halloween, scary stories that are all true. Kidnappings, zombie raccoons, haunted houses—real haunted houses!—and things that go "EEEEK!!!" in the night. Plus, a new story by David Sedaris, in which he walks among the dead.

#367: Ground Game

Mon, Oct 27 Listen
This American Life goes to Pennsylvania to figure out why, and how, John McCain and Barack Obama both think they can win there. And we get to know the ordinary people who’ve become the candidates’ most forceful foot soldiers.

#198: How to Win Friends and Influence People

Mon, Oct 20 Listen
Stories of people climbing to be number one. How do they do it? What is the fundamental difference between us and them?

#366: A Better Mousetrap 2008

Mon, Oct 13 Listen
Stories about people trying to find new solutions to age-old problems—solutions that sometimes cause problems of their own.

#365: Another Frightening Show About the Economy

Mon, Oct 6 Listen
Alex Blumberg and NPR's Adam Davidson - the two guys who reported our "Giant Pool of Money" episode - are back. They'll explain what happened this week, including what regulators could've done to prevent all of this from happening...

#364: Going Big

Mon, Sep 29 Listen
Stories about people who take grand, sweeping approaches to solving problems of all sorts.

#301: Settling the Score

Mon, Sep 22 Listen
Stories about the lengths we go to make things right, and about what money can and cannot fix.

#363: Enforcers

Mon, Sep 15 Listen
Professor So and So, Jojobean and YeaWhatever spend part of every day running cons on internet scammers: and consider themselves enforcers of justice, even after endangering a man’s life. This and other stories of who steps up, who doesn't and why.

#350: Human Resources

Mon, Mar 3 Listen
There’s a secret room in the New York City Board of Education building. Teachers are told to report there instead of their classrooms. No reason is usually given. Plus other stories of the uneasy interaction between humans and their institutions.

#220: Testosterone

Mon, Feb 25 Listen
Stories of people getting more testosterone and coming to regret it. And of people losing it and coming to appreciate life without it. The pros and cons of the hormone of desire.

#349: Valentine's Day 2008

Mon, Feb 18 Listen
Stories about couples that all take place decades after that moment their eyes meet.

#348: Tough Room

Mon, Feb 11 Listen
Comedy writers at The Onion pitch 700 story ideas a week. 16 make the cut. Also, a man on a mission of peace in a country that has one more slogan for him to push—nuclear energy. These and other stories of people speaking their minds in very tough rooms.

#326: Quiz Show

Mon, Feb 4 Listen
A man with social anxiety goes through a transformation, a young woman with high ideals has them dashed, and teams compete to solve some of the hardest puzzles in the world, for fun. The secret life of quiz shows, behind the questions and answers.

#324: My Brilliant Plan

Mon, Jan 28 Listen
An American reporter in Iraq decides to rent a house in a residential Baghdad neighborhood rather than live in a hotel and be an easy target for insurgents. And a little boy figures out an ingenious way to see his dead father again. Big ideas gone amok.

#347: Matchmakers

Mon, Jan 21 Listen
Sabir thought he'd found true love but he couldn't afford a wedding. Two foreign aid workers come to his rescue; but they soon realize he needs more than money. This and other stories of people matching others up—with wives, with toys, with body parts.

#323: The Super

Mon, Jan 14 Listen
Stories of the mysterious hold supers have on their buildings, or their buildings have on them.

#322: Shouting Across the Divide

Mon, Jan 7 Listen
A Muslim family moves to America. Things are good, until September 11: their daughter’s school begins using a textbook that says Muslims want to kill Christians. This and other stories of Muslims and non-Muslims trying to communicate, and misfiring.

#303: David and Goliath

Mon, Dec 31 Listen
Three stories of people attempting extraordinary things to balance the scales between Davids and Goliaths of all kinds. Children, nations, and retail shoppers alike.

#346: Home Alone

Mon, Dec 24 Listen
A 79-year-old woman dies in Los Angeles. She's lived alone for decades. No one knows her, or her next of kin. There's a body to be buried, stuff to get rid of. Who takes charge? This and other stories about what happens when people are left alone.

#345: Ties That Bind

Mon, Dec 17 Listen
A young girl named Sarah receives a heart transplant from a boy her age, and her mother sets off to find out more about him. But years later, Sarah's not sure she wants to know. Plus, a story by Jonathan Goldstein about a friendship gone awry in Bedrock.

#253: The Middle of Nowhere

Mon, Dec 10 Listen
Stories from faraway, hard-to-get-to places, where all rules are off, nefarious things happen because no one's looking, and there's no one to appeal to.

#344: The Competition

Mon, Dec 3 Listen
Stories about unintended consequences of market forces. A Tulsa businessman tries to cut costs by bringing workers from India to Tulsa. And two competing TV news teams in Boise, Idaho, begin with the same set of facts and end up with opposite conclusions.

#116: Poultry Slam

Mon, Nov 26 Listen
For Thanksgiving, the time of year when poultry consumption is highest, we investigate turkeys, chickens, ducks--fowl of all types...and their mysterious hold over us.

#174: Birthdays, Anniversaries, and Milestones

Mon, Nov 19 Listen
Birthdays, anniversaries, and milestones of all sorts...and how they mean something whether we want them to or not. A live show taped for our fifth anniversary, back in 2000, when we went on the road to Boston, New York, Chicago, and L.A.

#84: Harold

Mon, Nov 12 Listen
A parable of politics and race in America. The story of Chicago's first black mayor, Harold Washington, told two decades after his death. Washington died 20 years ago this month--on November 25, 1987.

#342: How to Rest in Peace

Mon, Nov 5 Listen
There are umpteen TV shows about solving murders, endless whodunits in bookstores. But what happens to people left behind after detectives close the case? Stories about children trying to figure out how to live normally after their parents have died.

#154: In Dog We Trust

Mon, Oct 29 Listen
Stories of dogs and cats and other animals that live in our homes. Exactly how much are they caught up in everyday family dynamics? We answer this question and others.

#110: Mapping

Mon, Oct 22 Listen
Five ways of mapping the world: by sight, smell, sound, touch, and taste. The world redrawn by the five senses.

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