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
  • 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
  • 198: How to Win Friends and Influence People

    198: How to Win Friends and Influence People
    Jan 5 2025

    People climbing to be number one. How do they do it? What is the fundamental difference between us and them?

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

    • Prologue: Ira Glass talks with Paul Feig, who, as a sixth-grader, read the Dale Carnegie classic How to Win Friends and Influence People at the urging of his father. He found that afterward, he had a bleaker understanding of human nature—and even fewer friends than when he started. (9 minutes)
    • Act One: David Sedaris has this instructive tale of how, as a boy, with the help of his dad, he tried to bridge the chasm that divides the popular kid from the unpopular — with the sorts of results that perhaps you might anticipate. (14 minutes)
    • Act Two: After the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, U.S. diplomats had to start working the phones to assemble a coalition of nations to combat this new threat. Some of the calls, you get the feeling, were not the easiest to make. Writer and performer Tami Sagher imagines what those calls were like. (6 minutes)
    • Act Three: To prove this simple point—a familiar one to readers of any women's magazines—we have this true story of moral instruction, told by Luke Burbank in Seattle, about a guy he met on a plane dressed in a hand-sewn Superman costume. (13 minutes)
    • Act Four: Jonathan Goldstein with a story about what it's like to date Lois Lane when she's on the rebound from Superman. (13 minutes)

    Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org

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    59 mins

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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Audible on Alexa
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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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