This American Life

By: This American Life
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  • Summary

  • Each week we choose a theme. Then anything can happen. This American Life is true stories that unfold like little movies for radio. Personal stories with funny moments, big feelings, and surprising plot twists. Newsy stories that try to capture what it’s like to be alive right now. It’s the most popular weekly podcast in the world, and winner of the first ever Pulitzer Prize for a radio show or podcast. Hosted by Ira Glass and produced in collaboration with WBEZ Chicago.
    Copyright 1995-2025 This American Life
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Art Political Science Social Sciences
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Episodes
  • 823: The Question Trap

    823: The Question Trap
    Jan 26 2025

    An investigation of when and why people ask loaded questions that are a proxy for something else.

    Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription.

    • Prologue: Host Ira Glass talks with producer Tobin Low about the question he got asked after he and his husband moved in together, and what he thinks people were really asking. (4 minutes)
    • Act One: “What do you think about Beyoncé?” and other questions raised by people on first dates. (12 minutes)
    • Act Two: When a common, seemingly innocuous question goes wildly off the rails. (13 minutes)
    • Act Three: Why are people asking me if my mother recognizes me, when it’s totally beside the point? (14 minutes)
    • Act Four: Schools ask their students the strangest essay questions sometimes. The experience of tutoring anxious teenagers through how to answer them requires a balladier, singing their lived experience to a crowd as though it were the Middle Ages. (10 minutes)

    Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org

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    57 mins
  • 852: Pivot Point

    852: Pivot Point
    Jan 19 2025

    People living in that in-between moment before everything changes.

    Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription.

    • Prologue: Kirk Johnson tells Ira about a strange choice he made during his family’s evacuation from the Sunset Fire in Los Angeles. (5 minutes)
    • Act One: Editor Nancy Updike tries to make sense of this current moment by talking to a master of dark comedy, Armando Ianucci. (19 minutes)
    • Act Two: As President Trump prepares to return to the Oval Office, producer Valerie Kipnis talks to Ukrainian soldiers on the front line who wonder about what his administration could mean for them. (14 minutes)
    • Act Three: Editor Susan Burton reflects on the ramp-up to an era that comes for so many of us. (9 minutes)
    • Act Four: In the wake of the Eaton Fire in Altadena, California, producer Miki Meek talks to a woman on a very particular mission. (6 minutes)

    Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org

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    58 mins
  • 851: Try a Little Tenderness

    851: Try a Little Tenderness
    Jan 12 2025

    In the new year, stories of people trying a radical approach to solving their problems.

    Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription.

    • Prologue: Ira meets two sisters who got into a fight, and then learned a lesson in turning the other cheek. (8 minutes)
    • Act One: A hardened PI works the toughest case of his very young life. (18 minutes)
    • Act Two: Producer Aviva DeKornfeld talks to a man who finds himself the target of vengeful crows. (8 minutes)
    • Act Three: Comedian Josh Johnson wonders if some people should’ve been spanked as kids. (10 minutes)
    • Act Four: Writer Etgar Keret reads his story about a bus driver who refuses to open the doors for late passengers. (9 minutes)

    Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org

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    1 hr and 1 min

What listeners say about This American Life

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Profile Image for Jackson

Life changing, life defining

I’m nowhere near the age to have kids but if I were a parent I’d share and bond over this podcast and the truly life changing impact it’s had on my life and I. My favorite hour each week is spent on the edge of a metaphorical seat with Ira’s sultry whispering caressing my earbuds. 😅😘

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Profile Image for Joseph

fantastic

Absolutely one of my favourite episodes, thank you! Would love it if you were able to do another such mystery episode regarding old houses or belongings and the search for the person's who owned them.

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Profile Image for Jennifer

Ira, you are the bezt

I hope you read these personally because I want you to know that I love these stories. I tell everyone I know to listen. Thank you for all that you think of, find and share.

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Profile Image for Glen Dingley

Great Podcast

I love the stories that they pick and choose and their discussion is very well done I have learned a lot in a lot in these podcasts good job!

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Profile Image for Marci Raney

loved this

just the absolute best podcast. I'm continually learning and just feel better having such rich content to absorb. Thank you Ira Glass!

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Profile Image for Harlow

Absolutely fascinating...

TAL was the first "podcast" before the term existed.i am so glad to have rediscovered it.

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Profile Image for Lonora

I loved Act 1 (Pirates of the Carib-Bean Town)

I couldn't stop laughing af the image the storyteller painted....and what happened when they revisited the story.

....act 2, not so much

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My favorite PODCAST by far!

Wish I could download more than just the ten episodes at a time! I love listening in my car.

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Profile Image for Jeffrey

A wonderful tribute

Beautiful and Moving stories throughout the episode, I couldn't stop listening. Thank you for sharing this again.

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