Host Ira Glass talks to Aaryn Zhou. When she was nine, her father threw her into the deep end of pool to teach her to swim.

Host Ira Glass interviews Lori Gottlieb about the time she sent a letter to a writer in a magazine, a letter packed with white lies.

Ira talks about what’s alarming him about this year’s election: facts seem less meaningful than they ever have, and the gap between the mainstream media and right-wing media’s versions of the world have never seemed further apart. CNN’s Jake Tapper explains what it was like to be on the air live when Donald Trump tried to take a huge, obvious lie and pass it off as the truth.

Producer Neil Drumming tells the story of his dad and his family’s timeshare in Orlando, Florida.

A short story by Lydia Davis about trying to calculate the cost of a love affair. The story is read by actor Matt Malloy.

Our story continues two years later in Colorado where detectives in four neighboring towns combine resources to run down a serial rapist.

A group called Improv Everywhere decides that an unknown band, Ghosts of Pasha, playing their first ever tour in New York, ought to think they're a smash hit. So they study the band's music and then crowd the performance, pretending to be hard-core fans.

Wilt Chamberlain - easily one of the best basketball players of all time - was a terrible free throw shooter. Except for one season when he changed technique and scored more free throws in one game than anyone ever has.

A bomb disposal robot is assigned a new and even more complicated task. Fiction by Scott Brown, read by actor Jeremy Shamos.

Two police officers who voted for Obama in 2008 explain to Producer Miki Meek why they went for Trump this time around.

Kids do not like getting told it’ll make sense when they’re older. They’re pretty sure the grown-ups are wrong, and whatever the conversation is, they’re up for it.


Ira visits an 83-year-old man named Dick Paterniti who’s been waging a long and lonely war against a woodpecker.

Actor Alex Karpovsky reads a short story by Etgar Keret, from his book, “The Bus Driver Who Wanted To Be God." (4 minutes)

Ira re-listens to an interview he did with his mom 16 years ago, three years before she died.

Producer Zoe Chace hung out with some immigration lawyers who are getting calls from their nervous clients.

A couple guys show off a pretty creative invention.

Host Ira Glass interviews author Alain de Botton about why so many of us choose the wrong spouses. Botton is the author of the new novel The Course of Love.

Producer Zoe Chace checks in on Tony, a diehard, conservative Republican and Ted Cruz supporter, to see how he’s holding up this week. Not great.

Samantha Broun interviews her mom about surviving a brutal attack by Reginald McFadden 20 years ago, and sets out to interview friends, family and policymakers about how that attack changed Pennsylvania law regarding life sentences at the time. Additional information and outtakes are available on the Transom website.