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3.1K to 9.9K🎙 Daily cadence·14 episodes·Last published yesterday - Monthly Reach
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Recent episodes
137: The Book That Changed Your Life
May 31, 2026
59m 42s
676: Here’s Looking at You, Kid
May 24, 2026
1h 01m 39s
887: Two Is One, One Is None!
May 17, 2026
59m 43s
318: With Great Power
May 10, 2026
1h 00m 51s
886: Blackout
May 3, 2026
1h 00m 55s
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| Date | Episode | Description | Length | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5/31/26 | ![]() 137: The Book That Changed Your Life | We want to believe our lives can be changed by the ideas contained in a book. Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription.Prologue: When Alexa was seven, she started going through her grandfather's books. Her grandfather was a playwright and teacher, and through the books—and especially through his notes in the margins—she entered the world of 1930's American theater. And she found a book that changed her life: writer Moss Hart's autobiography Act One. (5 minutes)Act One: More of Alexa Junge and how Moss Hart's autobiography changed her life. She followed his path, learned specific lessons, and had a vision of him that was absolutely clear—until she met his widow. (10 minutes)Act Two: A book that changed a family's life—temporarily, and not for the better. David Sedaris on what happened when he found a dirty book in the woods and passed it along to his sisters. (9 minutes)Act Three: Reporter Jeremy Goldstein tells the story of a man who had many books change his life, even though he'd never read them. (14 minutes)Act Four: Writer Meghan Daum travels to De Smet, South Dakota—where Laura Ingalls Wilder lived and set most of her Little House books. What surprises her is how much it matches what she'd imagined. The people there seem to be genuinely living by the values Laura wrote about. (15 minutes)Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.orgThis American Life privacy policy.Learn more about sponsor message choices.🎬 SEE THE STORY UNFOLD:Want to see the original photos, documents, and the faces behind this week's acts?👇 View the visual archive for this episode here:https://goo.su/XwNQm(Updated for each story) | 59m 42s | ||||||
| 5/24/26 | ![]() 676: Here’s Looking at You, Kid | Adults telling kids who they are, and kids wondering — are they right? Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription.Prologue: Host Ira talks with comedian Gary Gulman about his transformation from high school nobody to football star. (8 minutes)Act One: Gary puts on a tough guy costume, but will it turn him into a tough guy? Ira continues Gary Gulman’s story. (17 minutes)Act Two: Eleanor Gordon-Smith tells the story of a woman who wants to know why she was taken away from her mom as a kid. A version of this story is in Eleanor’s book Stop Being Reasonable: How We Really Change Our Minds. (30 minutes)Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.orgThis American Life privacy policy.Learn more about sponsor message choices.🎬 SEE THE STORY UNFOLD:Want to see the original photos, documents, and the faces behind this week's acts?👇 View the visual archive for this episode here:https://goo.su/XwNQm(Updated for each story) | 1h 01m 39s | ||||||
| 5/17/26 | ![]() 887: Two Is One, One Is None! | One family faces the Trump administration’s ban on trans people serving in the military, and responds with a surprising secret weapon. Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription.Prologue: Geirid and Chrissy are extreme planners. But about a year ago, they were confronted with a situation that even they had no idea how to plan for. (4 minutes)Act One: Geirid and Chrissy make an “in case of emergency, break glass” spreadsheet and get some big news. (14 minutes)Act Two: Geirid and Chrissy have less than a month to make a life-changing decision. The government gives them two options, and they try to find a third. (21 minutes)Act Three: A short story from Rachel Khong: Two people have a very consequential choice to make, given to them by God. (15 minutes)Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.orgThis American Life privacy policy.Learn more about sponsor message choices.🎬 SEE THE STORY UNFOLD:Want to see the original photos, documents, and the faces behind this week's acts?👇 View the visual archive for this episode here:https://goo.su/XwNQm(Updated for each story) | 59m 43s | ||||||
| 5/10/26 | ![]() 318: With Great Power | People who end up with far more power than they bargained for, and everything that comes with it. Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription.Prologue: Ira tells the story of two friends who had this incredible power to save someone. And with that great power came great responsibility. (4 minutes)Act One: Alex Kotlowitz reports on a woman with the power to change two people's lives — and at the height of her power, she doesn't even know she has it. (25 minutes)Act Two: Ira Glass talks with a mother and daughter who spent years watching their neighbor do things they found shocking and felt powerless to stop. Then, suddenly, they get the power to decisively change things permanently. And they have to decide if they will. (14 minutes)Act Three: When you're powerless, you spend a lot of time thinking about the people above you — what they want, why they do what they do, whether they'll ever come through. Shalom Auslander has a story about that relationship. (11 minutes)Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.orgThis American Life privacy policy.Learn more about sponsor message choices.🎬 SEE THE STORY UNFOLD:Want to see the original photos, documents, and the faces behind this week's acts?👇 View the visual archive for this episode here:https://goo.su/XwNQm(Updated for each story) | 1h 00m 51s | ||||||
| 5/3/26 | ![]() 886: Blackout | Since the war began in Iran, we've heard very little from people inside the country — and there's a reason for that. The entire country has been under an internet blackout. We worked with reporters Roxana Saberi and Fatemeh Jamalpour to get voice memos out of the country. Even though it was dangerous and difficult, people wanted to be heard. Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription.Prologue: Shirin's parents suddenly disappear into the blackout. (5 minutes)Act One: It’s a war and a blackout. People want to talk about both. (17 minutes)Act Two: What happened before America and Israel went to war with Iran. (9 minutes)Act Three: Iranians have many opinions about the war, and about each other. (12 minutes)Act Four: What happened inside Iran the night President Trump threatened that "a whole civilization could die." And a clue about where the internet blackout is headed. (19 minutes)Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.orgThis American Life privacy policy.Learn more about sponsor message choices.🎬 SEE THE STORY UNFOLD:Want to see the original photos, documents, and the faces behind this week's acts?👇 View the visual archive for this episode here:https://goo.su/XwNQm(Updated for each story) | 1h 00m 55s | ||||||
| 5/1/26 | ![]() Ira (Reluctantly) Gives a Graduation Speech | Ira always hated commencement speeches. Then he felt like he had to give this one. thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners🎬 SEE THE STORY UNFOLD:Want to see the original photos, documents, and the faces behind this week's acts?👇 View the visual archive for this episode here:https://goo.su/XwNQm(Updated for each story) | 8m 26s | ||||||
| 4/26/26 | ![]() 466: Blackjack | The casino game everyone thinks they can beat. Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription.Prologue: Host Ira Glass and producer Robyn Semien get a blackjack lesson from Andy Bloch, who played for the MIT blackjack team. He teaches them the basics of card-counting, the technique that gives players an advantage against the house — enough of an advantage that most casinos will ask you to leave if they catch you doing it. (9 minutes)Act One: Jack Hitt tells the story of the Christian card-counting team featured in the documentary Holy Rollers, and why they see no contradiction in being devout Christians who spend their days in casinos. (18 minutes)Act 2: Ira and Robyn go to the casino to try out their newfound card-counting skills. (5 minutes)Act Two: Producer Sarah Koenig tells the story of a woman who sued the casino where she lost her inheritance, saying that it was to blame, not her. (25 minutes)Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.orgThis American Life privacy policy.Learn more about sponsor message choices.🎬 SEE THE STORY UNFOLD:Want to see the original photos, documents, and the faces behind this week's acts?👇 View the visual archive for this episode here:https://goo.su/XwNQm(Updated for each story) | 1h 03m 32s | ||||||
| 4/19/26 | ![]() 393: Infidelity | Stories of cheating, cheaters, and the cheated. Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription.Prologue: Ira talks with Jessica Pressler about a phenomenon she noticed in the wedding notices in The New York Times. Couples were cheerfully telling—as part of their "meet cute" stories—how their relationships began with one of them cheating on a spouse or long-time partner. (4 minutes)Act One: From England, Ruby Wright has a story of an affair where—even years after it ended—it wasn't much discussed. (14 minutes)Act Two: Ira reviews some infidelity stats from his mother's book on the subject, Not Just Friends. And author James Braly tells a story of temptation live onstage at The Moth. (15 minutes)Act Three: Dani Shapiro on the confusing mess things can be during an affair. The story is from her memoir, Slow Motion. (16 minutes)Act Four: Etgar Keret describes the moment in the immediate aftermath of an affair. Actor Matt Malloy reads. (4 minutes)Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.orgThis American Life privacy policy.Learn more about sponsor message choices.🎬 SEE THE STORY UNFOLD:Want to see the original photos, documents, and the faces behind this week's acts?👇 View the visual archive for this episode here:https://goo.su/XwNQm(Updated for each story) | 57m 51s | ||||||
| 4/12/26 | ![]() 885: Bless This Mess | At a time when the U.S. government is trying to make American history tidier, we try to learn from the mess. Including the untold, messy story of Paul and Essie Robeson. Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription.Prologue: Guest Host Emanuele Berry talks to Nichole Hill about the Black movie characters Nichole was curious about as a child. (7 minutes)Act One: A giant of the Harlem Renaissance, Paul Robeson was the most famous American of his day. Until he wasn’t. Nichole Hill tells the messy, complicated story of Paul and his wife, Essie Robeson. (38 minutes)Act Two: In 1865, a formerly enslaved man named Jourdan Anderson received a letter from his former enslaver, asking Jourdan to return to the plantation and work. Actor Laurence Fishburne reads Jourdan’s response. Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.orgThis American Life privacy policy.Learn more about sponsor message choices.🎬 SEE THE STORY UNFOLD:Want to see the original photos, documents, and the faces behind this week's acts?👇 View the visual archive for this episode here:https://goo.su/XwNQm(Updated for each story) | 59m 47s | ||||||
| 4/5/26 | ![]() 212: The Other Man | What happens when a new guy comes on the scene and changes the way everyone relates to each other? Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription.Prologue: Ira talks with Sarah Koenig about the first and only time a movie star came to her family's house when she was a kid. It didn't go well, for the celebrity or for her. The star was Robert Redford. He arrived and immediately stole all the attention her parents usually lavished on her, their youngest. Worse, they were nervous and strange around him, not themselves at all. Young Sarah was not pleased. Robert Redford paid the price. (6 minutes)Act One: Davy Rothbart's mother is funny, rational, and by most measures, pretty normal. Except that she spends every day in the company of an ancient Buddhist monk named Aaron, who no one else can see. Davy talks to his brothers, father, and eventually his mom, and asks the question they've somehow never managed to discuss: do any of them actually believe he's real? (26 minutes)Act Two: Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr. had always lived in the shadow of his father's name. But just before his primary, an aide delivered strange news: a second Jesse Jackson had appeared on the same ballot — a retired truck driver with no political experience. Ira reports on whether it was a coincidence or mischief orchestrated by the Congressman's rivals. (9 minutes)Act Three: Jonathan Goldstein and Heather O'Neill tell the true story of a man trying to wedge himself into an idyllic family of two. For the first few years, Heather's daughter Arizona was not very fond of Jonathan. He ranked nineteenth on her list of favorite people, behind the neighbor's dog and the plumber. (15 minutes)Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.orgThis American Life privacy policy.Learn more about sponsor message choices.🎬 SEE THE STORY UNFOLD:Want to see the original photos, documents, and the faces behind this week's acts?👇 View the visual archive for this episode here:https://goo.su/XwNQm(Updated for each story) | 1h 00m 42s | ||||||
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| 3/29/26 | ![]() 884: The Idiot | M. Gessen returns to our show with a true-crime story that takes place entirely within their own family. This story comes to us from the producers at Serial Productions—who invented the true-crime podcast more than a decade ago—and from The New York Times. Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription.Act One: M Gessen tells Ira Glass about the surprising events that prompted them to begin reporting on their own family for their new podcast, The Idiot. They play the first episode of the series. (14 minutes)Act Two: Ira Glass and M Gessen continue to talk through the story of M’s cousin, Allen Gessen. They play more clips from the podcast, and we finally hear about the big, shocking thing that snapped their family apart. (20 minutes)Act Three: M Gessen tells Ira Glass about Allen’s trial, and we hear a recording of his conversation with the undercover agent. (21 minutes)Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.orgThis American Life privacy policy.Learn more about sponsor message choices.🎬 SEE THE STORY UNFOLD:Want to see the original photos, documents, and the faces behind this week's acts?👇 View the visual archive for this episode here:https://goo.su/XwNQm(Updated for each story) | 57m 59s | ||||||
| 3/22/26 | ![]() 883: Call Your Parents | In the early days of the radio show, Ira did a series of interviews with his parents that completely changed his relationship with them. This week, he returns to those interviews. Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription.Prologue: Ira talks about why four conversations reveal how his relationship with his parents changed. (4 minutes)Act One: Ira’s mom, Shirley, is invited to lead a discussion about how to get along with your adult children. Her adult children question her expertise. (9 minutes)Act Two: Ira asks his parents for advice on how he should build the radio show. His parents don’t hold back. (9 minutes)Act Three: Ira talks with his dad, Barry, about Barry’s own brief and doomed career in radio. (21 minutes)Act Four: An interview with Ira’s mom that, to this day, makes Ira’s skin crawl. (13 minutes)Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.orgThis American Life privacy policy.Learn more about sponsor message choices.🎬 SEE THE STORY UNFOLD:Want to see the original photos, documents, and the faces behind this week's acts?👇 View the visual archive for this episode here:https://goo.su/XwNQm(Updated for each story) | 58m 28s | ||||||
| 3/8/26 | ![]() 882: Give a Little Whistle | Two lawyers who work for ICE step forward and lift the curtain on what is really happening inside our immigration system right now. Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription.Prologue: Two lawyers dive into the details of what they’ve witnessed behind the scenes in different parts of the immigration system. (2 minutes)Act One: Former ICE attorney Ryan Schwank explains the chaos and dysfunction he observed at an ICE training academy, which led him to whistleblow to Congress two weeks ago. (12 minutes)Act Two: A federal judge orders the government to immediately release a bunch of people from detention. Days pass, and the government doesn’t comply. So the judge calls a hearing to figure out what’s going on. The lawyer's response is not what he or anybody expected. (25 minutes)Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.orgThis American Life privacy policy.Learn more about sponsor message choices.🎬 SEE THE STORY UNFOLD:Want to see the original photos, documents, and the faces behind this week's acts?👇 View the visual archive for this episode here:https://goo.su/XwNQm(Updated for each story) | 1h 00m 13s | ||||||
| 2/22/26 | ![]() 881: I Want What I Want | People deciding to do things that most of us do NOT choose to do. Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription.Prologue: A new documentary called The Boys and the Bees captures a moment where a six-year-old has a very unlikely wish, and his dad decides to grant it. Host Ira Glass talks with filmmaker Arielle Knight about what happens next. (9 minutes)Act One: John Tothill tells the story of Edward Dando, a 19th-century British glutton who would eat hundreds of oysters at a time and then run out on the check. John makes the case that we should all be more like Edward Dando. (15 minutes)Act Two: Producer Tobin Low listens in as Evan Roberts calls up an ex for the first time in years and tries to make the case that they should have been friends all along. (16 minutes)Act Three: Producer Zoe Chace brings us a dispatch from a courtroom in Texas this week, where on the very first day of a landmark federal trial about Antifa, the judge makes an unusual decision that no one sees coming. (15 minutes)Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.orgThis American Life privacy policy.Learn more about sponsor message choices.🎬 SEE THE STORY UNFOLD:Want to see the original photos, documents, and the faces behind this week's acts?👇 View the visual archive for this episode here:https://goo.su/XwNQm(Updated for each story) | 1h 00m 43s | ||||||
| 2/1/26 | ![]() 880: What Is Your Emergency? | 911 calls unlike any we’ve heard before, and other stories about immigration agents sweeping through America. Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription.Prologue: A collection of 911 calls where you can hear immigration enforcement moving through different cities and leaving chaos in their wake. (9 minutes)Act One: More 911 calls, including people on the line with dispatchers as ICE is chasing them, trying to puzzle out their next moves. (22 minutes)Act Two: Home Depots keep getting raided over and over again in Los Angeles. And day laborers are still showing up in store parking lots to find work every day. So what’s that like? Months and months of that cat and mouse? Anayansi Diaz-Cortes went to find out. (11 minutes)Act Three: Memo Torres tries to build an archive of every person taken by federal agents in Southern California. (11 minutes)Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.orgThis American Life privacy policy.Learn more about sponsor message choices.🎬 SEE THE STORY UNFOLD:Want to see the original photos, documents, and the faces behind this week's acts?👇 View the visual archive for this episode here:https://goo.su/XwNQm(Updated for each story) | 57m 24s | ||||||
| 1/18/26 | ![]() 879: A Christian and a Muslim Walk Into a Bar | When a joke could get you killed, should you say it anyway? A group of Syrian comedians test the limits of their newfound freedom, a year after the fall of the brutal Assad regime. Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription.Prologue: Under the dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad, comedian Sharief Homsi knew which jokes were too dangerous to say on stage. Now that Syria is under the control of a new government, Sharief and the other comedians of “Styria” set out on a national tour to see how far their comedy can go in this new Syria. (6 minutes)Act One: The comedians test out risky material and get big laughs on early tour dates. It’s going smoothly until they find out that their show scheduled in the conservative city of Hama is in danger of being cancelled. (13 minutes)Act Two: The comedians go to battle with local officials. (18 minutes)Act Three: The comedians try everything they can think of to keep their shows from being cancelled. (20 minutes)Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.orgThis American Life privacy policy.Learn more about sponsor message choices.🎬 SEE THE STORY UNFOLD:Want to see the original photos, documents, and the faces behind this week's acts?👇 View the visual archive for this episode here:https://goo.su/XwNQm(Updated for each story) | 59m 10s | ||||||
| 1/12/26 | ![]() The Americans Outside My Window | In this special mini-episode, we hear from someone in Venezuela with a very specific take on last week's U.S. attack.🎬 SEE THE STORY UNFOLD:Want to see the original photos, documents, and the faces behind this week's acts?👇 View the visual archive for this episode here:https://goo.su/XwNQm(Updated for each story) | 19m 21s | ||||||
| 1/11/26 | ![]() 878: New Lore Drop | People discovering information about their own lives that they did not know, and suddenly everything looks very different. Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription.Prologue: When Pete turned 18, his dad took him on a drive to reveal a family secret he was finally old enough to know. (11 minutes)Act One: Sometimes, a lore drop comes when you least expect it. That happened to Jake Cornell and his grandmother. Producer Aviva DeKornfeld talked to Jake about it. (14 minutes)Act Two: Ben Austen had a kind of new lore drop happen to him recently. But it was not the clarifying kind of lore drop, where everything suddenly makes sense — it was kind of the opposite. (29 minutes)Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.orgThis American Life privacy policy.Learn more about sponsor message choices.🎬 SEE THE STORY UNFOLD:Want to see the original photos, documents, and the faces behind this week's acts?👇 View the visual archive for this episode here:https://goo.su/XwNQm(Updated for each story) | 58m 17s | ||||||
| 1/9/26 | ![]() New Lore Drop | People discovering information about their own lives that they did not know and suddenly everything looks very different.🎬 SEE THE STORY UNFOLD:Want to see the original photos, documents, and the faces behind this week's acts?👇 View the visual archive for this episode here:https://goo.su/XwNQm(Updated for each story) | 59m 46s | ||||||
| 12/21/25 | ![]() 877: The Making Of | How one block in Portland, Oregon became a movie-set war zone that lots of people think is a real war zone. Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription — or to give one as a gift!Prologue: What the movie Hearts of Darkness and right-wing influencers have in common. (8 minutes)Act One: Producers Zoe Chace and Suzanne Gaber follow a bunch of right-wing influencers as they search for Antifa in Portland. (31 minutes)Act Two: We meet the so-called leader of Antifa in Portland. (16 minutes)Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.orgThis American Life privacy policy.Learn more about sponsor message choices.🎬 SEE THE STORY UNFOLD:Want to see the original photos, documents, and the faces behind this week's acts?👇 View the visual archive for this episode here:https://goo.su/XwNQm(Updated for each story) | 59m 10s | ||||||
| 10/16/25 | ![]() An Update from Ira | Ira Glass shares some news about This American Life To sign up as a Life Partner, visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners🎬 SEE THE STORY UNFOLD:Want to see the original photos, documents, and the faces behind this week's acts?👇 View the visual archive for this episode here:https://goo.su/XwNQm(Updated for each story) | 5m 18s | ||||||
| 7/17/25 | ![]() Bonus: Nancy's Deep Cuts | Ira Glass talks with longtime producer Nancy Updike about the most personal stories they have put on the radio. This is a sample of the bonus episodes we regularly release to our This American Life Partners. To gain access to all the bonus episodes AND help us keep making This American Life, join at thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners.🎬 SEE THE STORY UNFOLD:Want to see the original photos, documents, and the faces behind this week's acts?👇 View the visual archive for this episode here:https://goo.su/XwNQm(Updated for each story) | 26m 45s | ||||||
| 10/16/24 | ![]() A Big Announcement | Ira Glass has news to share about some things happening here at This American Life. To sign up as a Life Partner, visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners.🎬 SEE THE STORY UNFOLD:Want to see the original photos, documents, and the faces behind this week's acts?👇 View the visual archive for this episode here:https://goo.su/XwNQm(Updated for each story) | 4m 17s | ||||||
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Chart Positions
2 placements across 2 markets.
Chart Positions
2 placements across 2 markets.





















