Famous as America's "deadline poet," Calvin Trillin has been a gadfly in verse for The Nation since 1990, delighting readers with his rhyming observations on the news of the day. A staff writer for The New Yorker since 1963 and columnist for Time magazine, Trillin has traveled America's highways and byways to keep his finger on the nation's pulse (and its palate). Related Themes: books, food, humor

At a time when people express concern about the fate of the book, we join three virtuoso scholars—Seth Lerer, Leah Price, and Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht—who are intimately familiar with the life of the mind nurtured by the bound printed word. How has the book changed history? Are engagements with books different from engagements with other media? How do new technologies transform the way we think and learn? What is happening to life and learning as attention shifts from page to screen? What is gained and what is lost if we neglect interaction through books?

Related Themes: books, education, reading

In the course of over fifty years of married life and raising four children, Irvin and Marilyn Yalom have made marks in their respective fields of psychotherapy and women’s studies with contributions through teaching and research leading to the publication of academic papers and popular books. Last year, they each presented their own research into death: Irv’s Staring at the Sun: Overcoming the Terror of Death and Marilyn’s The American Resting Place: Four Hundred Years of History Through our Cemeteries and Burial Grounds. Our conversation will begin with the Yaloms’ poignant explorations of human finitude and then turn to the story of their time together as a dual-career academic couple. Related Themes: books, couples, creativity, death