When you’re the only one who can see something, sometimes it feels like you’re in on a special secret. The hard part is getting anyone to believe your secret is real. This week, people trying to show others what they see—including a woman with muscular dystrophy who believes she has the same condition as an Olympic athlete.
Episodes
Date
Duration
730: The Empty Chair
Things we’ve lost in the past year — since the first American coronavirus case — that we haven’t talked about so much. Gossip. The...
Sunday 24 January 2021
00:59:43
694: Get Back to Where You Once Belonged
People looking everywhere to find a place—any place—where, for once, they don't have to be the odd man out.
Sunday 17 January 2021
01:04:58
729: Making the Cut
There's always someone whose job it is to decide if you measure up.
Sunday 10 January 2021
01:04:37
692: The Show of Delights
In these dark, combative times, we attempt the most radical counterprogramming we could imagine: a show made up entirely of stories about...
Sunday 03 January 2021
01:04:14
728: Lights, Camera, Christmas!
This holiday season, we bring you a show filled with stories of people going to great lengths to throw a special Christmas for their...
Sunday 27 December 2020
01:00:15
727: Boulder v. Hill
What the day-to-day business of saving the world looks like. We visit with one group of people who are trying to rescue us from something...
Sunday 20 December 2020
01:07:13
726: Twenty-Five
To commemorate our show’s 25th year, we have a program about people who were born the year our show went on the air.
Sunday 13 December 2020
01:00:28
619: The Magic Show
Just a few years before he got the internship at NPR that started him in radio, our host Ira Glass had another career. He performed magic at...
Sunday 06 December 2020
01:00:16
725: Turkey in a Face Mask
For Thanksgiving weekend, stories about food, and people who set out on very particular missions with food.
Sunday 29 November 2020
01:05:28
682: Ten Sessions
What if someone told you about a type of therapy that could help you work through unhealed trauma in just ten sessions? Some people knock...
Sunday 22 November 2020
01:01:16
Americans In Paris
For our 25th Anniversary, a favorite episode from 2000. Many Americans have dreamy and romantic ideas about Paris, notions which probably...
Friday 20 November 2020
00:59:55
24 Hours at the Golden Apple
For our 25th Anniversary, a favorite episode from 2000. We document one day in a Chicago diner called the Golden Apple, starting at 5 a.m....
Friday 20 November 2020
00:58:05
Act V
For our 25th Anniversary, a favorite episode from 2002. We devote this entire episode to one story: Over the course of six months, reporter...
Friday 20 November 2020
01:01:07
Break-Up
For our 25th Anniversary, a favorite episode from 2007. Writer Starlee Kine on what makes the perfect break-up song and whether really sad...
Friday 20 November 2020
01:00:22
Switched at Birth
For our 25th Anniversary, a favorite episode from 2008. On a summer day in 1951, two baby girls were born in a hospital in small-town...
Friday 20 November 2020
01:00:16
129 Cars
For our 25th Anniversary, a favorite episode from 2013. We spend a month at a Jeep dealership on Long Island as they try to make their...
Friday 20 November 2020
01:15:29
Three Miles
For our 25th Anniversary, a favorite episode from 2015. There’s a program that brings together kids from two schools. One school is public...
Friday 20 November 2020
01:01:49
Rom-Com
For our 25th Anniversary, a favorite episode from 2018. The one thing you know for sure when you're watching a romantic comedy is that it's...
Friday 20 November 2020
01:03:19
724: Personal Recount
Stories of people changing their minds.
Sunday 15 November 2020
01:03:37
723: Squeaker
People grappling with an endless presidential election.
Sunday 08 November 2020
01:08:46
722: The Unreality of Now
Ahead of the election, we have stories about people trying to live in the unreality that defines this moment. Election officials combat a...
Sunday 01 November 2020
01:05:14
721: The Walls Close In
Stories of people who find themselves stuck in small spaces—an elevator, an attic, an orchestra pit—trying to make sense of their new...
Sunday 25 October 2020
01:00:02
720: The Moment After This Moment
Stories about people who are worried — or not worried enough! — about what's hurtling unstoppably towards them.
Sunday 18 October 2020
00:58:49
668: The Long Fuse
People tossing words out into the world impulsively, to ignite and burn over decades.
Sunday 11 October 2020
01:06:24
719: Trust Me I’m a Doctor
A doctor who breaks the law might go to jail like anybody else. But who decides if that doctor gets to keep their medical license? On...
The podcast This American Life has been added to your home screen.
When you’re the only one who can see something, sometimes it feels like you’re in on a special secret. The hard part is getting anyone to believe your secret is real. This week, people trying to show others what they see—including a woman with muscular dystrophy who believes she has the same condition as an Olympic athlete.