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Even though kids learn to read in school, many hate it. Educator Alvin Irby shares insights on inspiring children—especially Black boys—to discover books they enjoy and begin identifying as readers.

When Tracy Edwards was expelled from school, she wound up working on boats. That led her to form a record-breaking all-female sailing crew, which circumnavigated the world in 1989.

Cardiologist Sandeep Jauhar explains a case where deep grief caused takotsubo cardiomyopathy—also called "broken heart syndrome." He examines the connection emotions have with our most vital organ.

A.A. Milne's beloved bear made his first appearance in a short poem titled "Teddy Bear" which was published in Punch magazine on Feb. 13, 1924. We'll listen back to a 1929 recording of Milne.

The human body is not a patchwork of separate systems. It's intricately connected, says neuroscientist Lisa Mosconi. She explains the relationship between our brains, hormones and reproductive organs.

Astrophysicist Erika Hamden spent 10 years building FIREBall, a telescope that reaches the stratosphere and looks for clues to how stars form. Launching it was more challenging than she ever imagined.

mRNA vaccines are groundbreaking—but the mRNA inside them is fragile. Kathryn Whitehead explains how scientists have created the right "packing material" to safely deliver these to the right cells.

Fiction can serve as a window into multiple realities--to imagine different futures or understand our own past. This hour, author Dave Eggers talks tech, education, and the healing power of writing.

In 2016, Shabana Basij-Rasikh created Afghanistan's School of Leadership for girls. When the Taliban took control in 2021, she helped her students flee and continued their education abroad.

Karen Grigsby Bates tours the South Los Angeles neighborhood of Watts with journalist Karl Fleming, who was nearly beaten to death during a racial protest in the summer of 1966. Fleming's new book details his time reporting on the civil rights movement during the turbulent 1960s.

In the late 1960s, just as San Francisco was having its own Summer of Love, a rustic canyon at the heart of Los Angeles was also in bloom with songs that defined the moment, written and performed by the bands that defined a generation.

Nancy Rawles' new novel My Jim is the story of Sadie Watson, the wife of "Nigger Jim," as he was referred to in the Mark Twain classic Huckleberry Finn. Rawles' novel is an enduring love story as much as it is a chronicle of slavery and resistance to it.

B.B. King's loved ones gathered at a Southern California home recently to celebrate his 80th birthday with a backyard concert featuring performances from some of his closest friends.

A failed TV pilot's new life online shows how networks are trying to harness the fringe fiefdoms of Web video. For NBC, the Web is a frontier for new content, and a way to cement the communities around its broadcast shows.

Tuesday marks the 60th anniversary of the bombing of Nagasaki, the second of two atomic-bomb strikes on Japan that ended World War II. The effects of those attacks continue to affect Japanese culture today.

A meteorologist for NBC Washington paused his live weather report Thursday to call his family about a tornado warning near their home.

In An Ocean of Air, author Gabrielle Walker plunges into the Earth's atmosphere, exposing its layers and colorful history. From Galileo to global warming and wind storms, Walker explains the role of this complex substance on Earth.

In Hunting the Tiger, journalist Christopher S. Stewart tells the story of how Zeljko Raznatovic, a petty criminal, rose to head one of Serbia's most notorious death squads.

In The Good Rat, legendary writer Jimmy Breslin gives readers an inside look at the everyday life of the New York mafia. Breslin goes inside mob watering holes, describes famous body dumping grounds and captures legendary mafia moments.

For a secretive industry, the business of espionage is one many readers feel they understand — especially if they happen to be fans of spy thrillers. Nancy Pearl, a Seattle librarian and author, offers a list of her favorites.

Gary Schroen is one of the CIA's most respected and experienced spies. Two days after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, his bosses handed him a new mission targeting Osama bin Laden: "bring his head back in a box." Days later, Schroen and his team were on a plane.

In his new work of "applied blunderology" Um...: Slips, Stumbles, and Verbal Blunders, and What They Mean journalist and linguistics specialist Michael Erard categorizes blunders, investigates why we make them and serves up a generous amount of slips, malapropisms and even Bushisms.

A little more than a month before her 40th wedding anniversary, Joan Didion's beloved husband — novelist John Gregory Dunne — died unexpectedly. Didion has written a book about his death, The Year of Magical Thinking.

Not just a literary movement, the Harlem Renaissance was also the name of a famous ballroom in the New York City neighborhood and a barrier-breaking basketball team. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar has written a book that chronicles their histories.

In her new book, Conquering Gotham, historian Jill Jonnes documents the drama behind the construction of New York City's old Penn Station. She gathers a cast of corporate leaders, corrupt politicians and daring engineers who brought the station to life in 1910.