Alex Blumberg tells the story of an audacious act of rebranding done by a group of people who aren't normally thought of as very audacious: public librarians. In Michigan, they've started staging rock concerts in libraries.

This American Life producer Alex Blumberg investigates a little-studied phenomenon: Children who get a mistaken idea in their heads about how something works or what something means, and then don't figure out until well into adulthood that they were wrong. Includes the tale of a girl who received a tissue box for Christmas, allegedly painted by trained monkeys.

Rachel Louise Snyder reports on the struggle to save the Cambodian economy. Right now, Cambodia is competing with other nations for the business of big clothing companies all over the world—buyers like the Gap, Nike, Adidas.

John Hodgman provides an occasionally true account of seven days spent at the Mall of America. After crossing mall officials, he goes rogue, drinking from the flume ride and exploring what he describes as a secret tunnel lined with human skulls.

Kristy Kruger realized in college just how bad her high school education had been. She was always having to pretend she knew what the people around here were talking about when she didn't know.

Bob Berenz had a good job as an electrician. But he wanted to do something bigger.

About a year ago, a John Hopkins University study in the British medical journal The Lancet estimated the number of civilian casualties in Iraq. It came up with a number—100,000 dead—that was higher than any other estimate, and was mostly ignored.

Julie Hill explains how she's going to remake all the ideas her son has about his father, using a very simple tactic.

Our program ends with a story of knowing your enemy in a more domestic setting: In a marriage. Actor Matt Malloy reads the story by Etgar Keret. "Eight Percent of Nothing" is from a collection of stories called The Nimrod Flip-Out.

Lots of soldiers in Iraq are writing about their experiences online. Producer Amy O'Leary has read through dozens of them and talks about what the soldiers are writing.

The story of Collin Warner continues. His friend Carl manages to convince the real shooter and the victim's brother (who watched him die on the sidewalk) to testify on Collin's behalf.

Once he starts preaching his own revelation, Carlton Pearson's church falls apart. After all, when there's no hell (as the logic goes), you don't really need to believe in Jesus to be saved from it.

Yeah, Mary Magdalene knew Jesus. She knew him before anybody else had ever even heard of him.

Continuing from our prologue, host Ira Glass checks in with Lisa and her older daughter, Kennedy, to see how the experiment went. After a month, they've charted surprising results, learned that the girls aren't the only ones in the house who need to change, and found out just how much money it takes to get a twelve-year-old to play with a five-year-old.

Nick Spitzer, host of the Public Radio International music show American Routes, drives through deserted streets to return to his own house, and finds it doesn't feel at all like home.

Six-year-old DJ has two dads, Dan Savage and Terry Miller. DJ is being raised by two gay men, but he has a preschooler's understanding of what gay means.

Amy O'Leary tells the story of a software writer at Apple Computer whose job contract ends, but he refuses to go away. He continues to show up at work every day, sneaking in the front door, hiding out in empty offices, and putting in long hours on a project the company canceled.

Writer Shalom Auslander reads his short story about how he decided to start forgetting the dead, even though his job required him to remember. Shalom's most recent book is Hope: A Tragedy.

Five stories of people doing what they think they have to, in order to make ends meet. A suburban dad makes what seems like a rational choice (to him, at the time, anyway) to start robbing laundries and banks.

Chris Tenove had this idea he thought could really make a difference for people in the developing world. The thought was to bring well-meaning tourists where their money would do the most good, spend some time with the locals, and then leave behind a little money to help out.

Beau O'Reilly gets a chance to settle a 17-year-old score with the help of the Chicago police.

To find out more about the bridge Denise talked about in act one and the armed police who prevented pedestrians from crossing, This American Life producer Alex Blumberg talks with Lorrie Beth Slonsky and her husband Larry Bradshaw. They're paramedics from San Francisco who were visiting New Orleans for a convention when Hurricane Katrina hit.

Dawna Lentz was a new employee at Quiznos sub shop in Seattle when the franchise owners just gave up. They stopped buying supplies, stopped answering their phones.

One day Virginia Holman's mother announced she was taking Virginia and her little sister to their cottage at the beach. At the time, Virginia didn't realize they were being kidnapped—that they'd be held for months, hostage to her mother's mental illness.