This American Life show

This American Life

Summary: Official free, weekly podcast of the award-winning radio show "This American Life." First-person stories and short fiction pieces that are touching, funny, and surprising. Hosted by Ira Glass, from WBEZ Chicago Public Media, and distributed by Public Radio International. In mp3 and updated Mondays.

Join Now to Subscribe to this Podcast
  • Visit Website
  • RSS
  • Artist: Chicago Public Media
  • Copyright: Copyright 1995-2015 Chicago Public Media & Ira Glass

Podcasts:

 #518: Except For That One Thing | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: Unknown

Mike Anderson was 36 years old, married, a suburban father of four. He owned a contracting business and built his family’s modest, three-bedroom house in St. Louis from the ground up. He volunteered at church on the weekends and coaches his son’s football team. All pretty normal, right? Except for one thing … which surfaced one day last summer.

 #517: Day At The Beach | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: Unknown

It's January, and freezing outside. This week 5 stories from the sunny beach! Including David Sedaris telling us how losing a sister in 2013 prompted a family reunion, and an impulse buy of a lifetime — an oceanfront cottage big enough for all of them.

 #399: Contents Unknown | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: Unknown

A man named David Maclean finds himself in a train station in India, with no idea how he got there or who he is. His memory gone, he has no choice but to let other people—police, doctors, friends, family—create an identity for him. David's book about this incident is called The Answer to the Riddle Is Me. Plus other stories of filling in the blank.

 #516: Stuck In The Middle | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: Unknown

Jan Brady is not the only one who hated being in the middle. This week we have stories about how it sucks to be in limbo or be the mediator, but we also hear from a man who absolutely loves being in that uncertain and boring middle most of us dread — on hold, listening to hold music.

 #515: Good Guys | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: Unknown

Lots of men think of themselves as "good guys." But what does it actually take to be one? To be a truly good guy. Stories of valiant men attempting to do good in challenging circumstances: in war zones, department stores, public buses, and at the bottom of a cave 900 feet underground.

 #484: Doppelgängers | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: Unknown

We got a tip about a meat plant selling pig intestines as fake calamari, wondered if it could be true, and decided to investigate. Doppelgängers, doubles, evil twins and not-so-evil twins, this week. Fred Armisen co-hosts with Ira Glass. EXTRAS: Fred's Ira impression on SNL. Pig/squid shirts. And prints.

 #14: Accidental Documentaries | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: Unknown

What unites these stories on the surface is that they're all made from old tapes, recordings found in attics and thrift stores. What unites them under that surface — and not far under it — is that they all end up being stories about fathers and the legacies that fathers leave their children.

 #514: Thought That Counts | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: Unknown

It's the thought that counts. So true. Unfortunately, sometimes it's not always so clear what that thought was. And sometimes, when it is clear, we wish it wasn't. This week, during this, the season of giving, we turn our spotlight on the givers and exactly whatever it was they could've possibly been thinking.

 #317: Unconditional Love | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: Unknown

Can love be taught? A family uses a controversial therapy to train their son to love them. And other stories about the hard and sometimes painful work of loving other people.

 #511: The Seven Things You're Not Supposed to Talk About | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: Unknown

Producer Sarah Koenig's mother lives by a set of rules about conversation. She has an actual list of off-limits topics, including how you slept, your period, your health, your diet and more. You don't talk about these things, she says, because nobody cares. This week we try to find stories on these exact topics that will prove her wrong.

 #510: Fiasco! | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: Unknown

Stories of when things go wrong. Really wrong. When you leave the normal realm of human error, fumble, mishap, and mistake and enter the territory of really huge breakdowns. Fiascos. Things go so awry that normal social order collapses. An updated version of a classic episode, now including one of the most popular stories we've ever aired... about a police officer and a squirrel.

 #508: Superpowers 2013 | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: Unknown

This is an updated version of a classic episode, featuring a new story from Snap Judgment. We answer the following questions about superpowers: Can superheroes be real people? (No.) Can real people become superheroes? (Maybe.) And which is better: flight or invisibility? (Depends who you ask.) Chris ware's comic mentioned in the episode is here.

 #507: Confessions | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: Unknown

Two crime scenes, two murders. One crime is solved, the other case went cold. Both raise the question: What should a person suspected of murder say?

 #414: Right to Remain Silent | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: Unknown

Stories about people who have the right to remain silent... but choose not to exercise that right—including police officer Adrian Schoolcraft, who secretly recorded his supervisors telling officers to manipulate crime statistics and make illegal arrests. The Village Voice series that broke Schoolcraft's story, written by Graham Rayman, is here.

 #505: Use Only as Directed | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: Unknown

One of the country's most popular over-the-counter painkillers — acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol — also kills the most people, according to data from the federal government. Over 150 Americans die each year on average after accidentally taking too much. And it requires a lot less to endanger you than you may know. We reported this alongside ProPublica. Their stories here and here.

Comments

Login or signup comment.