There isn't a more eclectic collection of human stories and experiences than those featured every weekend on "This American Life" (KUOW Saturdays 11a-12p and KPLU Saturdays 12p-1p). Some are tragic, some are hilarious, and all have quirky introductive narratives by host Ira Glass.
Recently, faithful reader Eric provided Blatherwatch with a link to a collection of the Seven Episodes of This American Life You Need To Listen to Right Now! for your listening enjoyment. Thanks Eric!
From the NPR website:
This American Life is a weekly public radio show broadcast on more than 500 stations to about 1.8 million listeners. It is produced by Chicago Public Media, distributed by Public Radio International, and has won all of the major broadcasting awards. It is also often the most popular podcast in the country, with around 700,000 people downloading each week. From 2006-2008, we produced a television version of This American Life on the Showtime network, which won three Emmys. We're also the co-producers, with NPR News, of the economics podcast and blog Planet Money. And a half dozen stories from the radio show are being developed into films.
The radio show and TV show follow the same format. There's a theme to each episode, and a variety of stories on that theme. It's mostly true stories of everyday people, though not always. There's lots more to the show, but it's sort of hard to describe. Probably the best way to understand the show is to start at our favorites page, though we do have longer guides to our radio show and our TV show. If you want to dive into the hundreds of episodes we've done over the years, there's an archive of all our old radio shows and listings for all our TV episodes, too.
There are several ways to get the show:
- Stream radio episodes for free from the archive
- Listen on the radio
- Subscribe to the free weekly podcast
- Download the most recent episode a la carte, free, from the homepage
- Download old episodes for $0.99 on iTunes or Amazon MP3
- Stream episodes through our apps for iPhone, Android or iPad
- Purchase greatest hits collections on CD
- Purchase DVDs of our TV seasons
- Download TV Season One or Season Two on iTunes
- Rent TV Season Two on Netflix
You can also read about shows we're doing on the road, about our staff, about how to submit a story idea, about how to learn to make radio, about our internship program or about press coverage, check answers to frequently asked questions, or follow us on Facebook or Twitter.
There will be a rememberance of David Rackoff this weekend. A great writer/performer, and not a bad (if sad) way to get into This American Life.
Posted by: JDB | August 15, 2012 at 10:24 AM