Brad Meltzer: "The JFK Conspiracy"

01/24/25 • 19 min

From the New York Times bestselling authors of "The Nazi Conspiracy" and "The Lincoln Conspiracy" comes a true, little-known story about the first assassination attempt on John F. Kennedy, right before his inauguration. What most Americans don’t know is that JFK’s historic presidency almost ended before it began―at the hands of a disgruntled sociopathic loner armed with dynamite, named Richard Pavlick, on December 11, 1960. Listen to Michael's conversation with Brad Meltzer, co-author (w/Josh Mensch) of "The JFK Conspiracy: The Secret Plot to Kill Kennedy―and Why It Failed" to learn all about it. Original air date 24 January 2025. The book was published on 14 January 2025.

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Adam Grant: "Think Again"

Organizational psychologist Adam Grant is an expert on opening other people's minds--and our own. Listen to him discuss "Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know" with Michael in this podcast. Intelligence is usually seen as the ability to think and learn, but in a rapidly changing world, there's another set of cognitive skills that might matter more: the ability to rethink and unlearn. In our daily lives, too many of us favor the comfort of conviction over the discomfort of doubt. We listen to opinions that make us feel good, instead of ideas that make us think hard. We see disagreement as a threat to our egos, rather than an opportunity to learn. We surround ourselves with people who agree with our conclusions, when we should be gravitating toward those who challenge our thought process. The result is that our beliefs get brittle long before our bones. Original air date 3 February 2021. The book was published on 2 February 2021.

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Tim Harford: "The Data Detective"

Michael talks with Tim Harford, author of "The Data Detective: Ten Easy Rules to Make Sense of Statistics." Today we think statistics are the enemy, numbers used to mislead and confuse us. That’s a mistake, Tim Harford says in The Data Detective. We shouldn’t be suspicious of statistics—we need to understand what they mean and how they can improve our lives: they are, at heart, human behavior seen through the prism of numbers and are often “the only way of grasping much of what is going on around us.” If we can toss aside our fears and learn to approach them clearly—understanding how our own preconceptions lead us astray—statistics can point to ways we can live better and work smarter. Original air date 10 February 2021.