831: Lists!!!
This American Life
08/17/25
•64m
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How they organize the chaos of the world, for good and for bad.
- Prologue: Ira interviews David Wallechinsky, who wrote a wildly popular book in the 1970s called The Book of Lists, full of trivia and research, gathered into lists like "18 Brains" and "What They Weighed." The book sold millions of copies and had four sequels and a brief spin-off TV show. The list books were like the internet, before the internet. (12 minutes)
- Act One: John Fecile talks to his brother, Pat, about a list their other brother made before he died. They each have different ideas about what the list means and how they feel about it. (14 minutes)
- Act 2: A brief visit with Bobby, who keeps a list in his phone of all the dogs in his neighborhood and their names to save him from the awkwardness of not knowing the name of someone’s dog – because people get upset if you don’t remember their dog’s name. (3 minutes)
- Act Two: Reporter M. Gessen talks to Russians living in America and elsewhere about the lists the Russian government has put them on in the last few years. M. Gessen is also on one of these lists. Each list has its own complex rules and potential consequences for the people on the lists and for their family members who live in Russia. (28 minutes)
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838: Letters! Actual Letters!
August 10, 2025
•58m
When the best—and perhaps only—way to say something is to write it down.
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- Prologue: Ira goes out with a letter carrier, ‘Grace,’ as she delivers mail on her route. He learns about the people who bring us our mail and also how people treat their mail. (11 minutes)
- Act One: Writing a letter decades after an event that shaped her life was the only way that Nicole Piasecki could make some sense of it. (18 minutes)
- Act Two: Yorkshire, 1866. A farmer overcomes his timidity and writes a very important letter to a local beauty. (3 minutes)
- Act Three: When senior editor David Kestenbaum was still a rookie reporter, he wrote an email to a legend. Then he waited...and waited...for a reply. (6 minutes)
- Act Four: A woman writes an unusual letter on behalf of her husband. (1 minute)
- Act Five: Producer Zoe Chace compares the letters a person gets and the letters they wish they got. (12 minutes)
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865: The Other Territory
August 24, 2025
•74m
Since October 7th, while the world has focused its attention on Gaza, the Israeli government has tightened the screws on the three million Palestinians in the West Bank in all sorts of dramatic ways. We travel to the West Bank to see these changes in person.
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- Prologue: Ira joins Hamed on his Monday commute. He has to navigate a constantly changing series of checkpoints and roadblocks to get to work each day. Hamed works for Comet-ME, which sets up solar panels, water systems, and security cameras in small villages all over the West Bank. (13 minutes)
- Act One: Settler violence has worsened significantly in the West Bank since October 7, 2023. Yael Even Or travels to a tiny village called Tuba, surrounded by Israeli settlements, to meet the 27-year-old resident trying to protect it. (26 minutes)
- Act 2: Two quick snapshots of life in the West Bank since October 7th. (6 minutes)
- Act Two: After October 7th, Israeli Minister of Security Itamar Ben-Gvir increased restrictions on Palestinian prisoners in Israeli security prisons. Prisoners started dying. Dana Chivvis looks into one of those deaths. (25 minutes)
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