If the word “Viking” conjures for you a braided warrior raiding a village in the north of Europe, you’re not exactly wrong. But there’s a lot more to the story.

Multilevel marketing is something of an American tradition. Journalist Bridget Read tells the story of the money-making schemes that continue to ensnare people today.

Jesus’s mother Mary likely lived for over 40 years, but many believers only think of her in two places, the Nativity and the Crucifixion. The scholar James Tabor wants to change that.

Author and journalist Jonathan Rauch is a Jewish atheist. And yet, he’s calling on Christians to remember their faith — and practice it the way Founding Father James Madison might have done.

What do books say about us? This week, Catherine Weller, Ken Sanders and Anne Holman join us to talk about their favorite winter reads — the titles they recommend that we can all gift to each other or curl up with while the snow (hopefully) falls and the fire crackles.

Jerry Kane and his teenage son Joseph were men of no nation. Their lives — and their violent ends — are the subject of the new feature film “Sovereign,” directed by Christian Swegal, who joins us to talk about it.

What weighs five pounds, hasn’t been seen in print for 20 years, but still shapes the way we think about language? Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary — and author Stefan Fatsis is here to tell us why it matters.

Of the many casualties of violent conflict, food is yet another. Michael Shaikh’s new book explains how war and genocide change what we eat.

For many people, the night sky is an afterthought, especially if you live in a big city, where all the artificial light drowns out the stars. But the nature writer Craig Childs wants to help us rediscover the dark heavens and consider what they show us about who we are and where we fit in the universe.

Wallace Stegner made a name for himself writing about the place that shaped him: the Mountain West and the people there. Alex Beam’s biography tells the story.