It’s the late 1960s, and a California TV repairman named Bob sees an opportunity to help people cheat death with the new science of cryonics. But freezing dead people isn’t easy. And apologizing for the mistakes you make along the way? Even harder.

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

• Prologue: Host Ira Glass talks about the way most political apologies go, and chats with a man named Derek Jones about similar sorts of apologies among preteen girls and King David, in the Old Testament. (7 minutes)
• Act One: In the late 1960s, a California TV repairman named Bob Nelson joined a group of enthusiasts who believed they could cheat death with a new technology called cryonics. But freezing dead people so scientists can reanimate them in the future is a lot harder than it sounds. Harder still was admitting to the family members of people Bob had frozen that he'd screwed up. Sam Shaw reports. (42 minutes)
• Act Two: There's a famous William Carlos Williams poem called "This is Just to Say." It's about, among other things, causing a loved one inconvenience and offering a non-apologizing apology. Producer Sean Cole explains that this is possibly the most spoofed poem around. We asked some of our regular contributors to get into the act. Sarah Vowell, David Rakoff, Starlee Kine, Jonathan Goldstein, Shalom Auslander, and Heather O'Neill all came up with their own variations of Williams's classic lines. (7 minutes)

Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org

This American Life privacy policy.
Learn more about sponsor message choices.

Regular people trapped inside Greek myths.

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

• Prologue: When a mysterious, ripped-open package arrives on Pablo's doorstep, he takes it as a sign. (4 minutes)
• Act One: Pablo flies closer to the sun. (14 minutes)
• Act Two: In Greek mythology, there's Hades, where everyone goes when they die. You have to cross the river Styx to get there, and there’s a gate with this three-headed dog. He’s guarding the entrance and he’s supposed to make sure only actual dead people enter. This story is about a real person in America who stood at those very gates. Which is not the easiest job it turns out, at least not right now. (24 minutes)
• Act Three: A mortal gets the assignment of a lifetime — to go interview an actual god who is living on earth, traveling under the name of Lionel Messi. (11 minutes)

Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org

This American Life privacy policy.
Learn more about sponsor message choices.

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.org

This American Life privacy policy.
Learn more about sponsor message choices.