January 24, 2008 - MPR's Gary Eichten interviews Louis Johnston, an economics professor at St. John's University and the College of St. Benedict, to discuss the tumultuous economy. Eichten also talks to MPR’s chief economics correspondent Chris Farrell to analyze the situation.
January 23, 2008 - Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate Al Franken takes listener questions for Midday's "Meet the Candidates" series. Franken, 55, was born in New York City, but grew up in St. Louis Park, Minnesota.
December 25, 2007 - Truman Capote reads his story "A Christmas Memory," Garrison Keillor does a Christmas "News from Lake Wobegon," and Dan Olson reads the famous 1897 New York Sun Christmas letter "Is there a Santa Claus."
December 20, 2007 - BIll Holm speaks at the Minneapolis Library series Talk of the Stacks. Holm talks about what living in Iceland teaches you about America in his book "Windows of Brimnes: An American In Iceland."
December 20, 2007 - Two of Minnesota's freshman congressmen, Tim Walz and Keith Ellison, discuss what surprised them, what made them proud, and what they found disappointing about their first year in Washington D.C.
December 14, 2007 - A non-game wildlife expert from the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources takes questions about how birds and other wildlife behave in winter. Guest: Carrol Henderson: Non-game wildlife specialist at the Minnesota Dempartment of Natural Resources. Henderson is the author of "Oology: Ralph's Talking Eggs."
December 7, 2007 - Two lives changed by Pearl Harbor. Ken Deans was in the Army on the Island of Oahu on Dec. 7th, l941. His base was hit during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Carl Nomura was 19 at the time and living in Los Angeles. Not long after the attack, he and 120,000 other Japanese Americans were placed in internment camps.
December 3, 2007 - Arvonne Fraser recounts her life in politics.Arvonne Fraser has been a force in Minnesota's DFL Party for more than half a century. Fraser, who is married to former U.S. Rep. Don Fraser, disussed her new memoir "She's No Lady" recently with public radio icon Garrison Keillor.
November 26, 2007 - MPR’s Gary Eichten interviews Minnesota writer Jim Klobuchar about his book "Pieces of My Heart: Everyone has an Everest." Klobuchar, an award-winning former columnist for the Star Tribune, discusses collection of essays about the people on his travels who have inspired him.
November 21, 2007 - "Prince of Tides" author Pat Conroy says "Patricia Hampl writes the best memoirs of any writer in the English language." She has written five of them, most recently "The Florist's Daughter," which she adapted into a performance and reading recently at the Fitzgerald Theater. Minnesota memoirist Patricia Hampl has won numerous honors including a Guggenheim fellowship and a MacArthur Fellowship. Hampl is also a regents professor of English at the University of Minnesota.