This American Life (Unofficial)

A grown man tries to get to the bottom of why his schoolmates threw him in a lake 20 years earlier. And a woman buys a house on the cheap, with the understanding that the seller will soon vacate. Ten years later, she's still waiting.

Stories about kids who actually want their parents looking out for them.

In this show we return to two radio programs originally broadcast in 1996 and 1997. In one show, listeners came onstage with their letters, which they read aloud. In another, listeners from around the country talked about all the brand new sorts of experiences they were having with this new technology that had entered everyone's lives, the Internet. Each show, in its way, is a kind of time capsule...

Stories about people trying to find new solutions to age-old problems—solutions that sometimes cause problems of their own.

The right of habeas corpus has been a part of our country's legal tradition longer than we've actually been a country. It means that our government has to explain why it's holding a person in custody. But now, the War on Terror has nixed many of the rules we used to think of as fundamental. At Guantanamo Bay, our government initially claimed that prisoners should not be covered by habeas—or even b...

Stories about the kinds of chase games that just never end. From the high California desert to a high-end furniture showroom.

In honor of Valentine's Day, This American Life brings you stories of how love blossoms, even when (perhaps) it shouldn't.

Stories that take place on the edge of civilization, just out of sight.

A girl signs up for a class. A couple hires an accountant. A group of co-workers decides to pool their money and buy a couple of lottery tickets. In the beginning, they're full of hope and optimism — and then something turns. Stories of good ideas gone bad.

A full-throttle, show-stopping, no-holds-barred Christmas Spectacular! Shedding the crusty old Christmas stories of yore, we bring you new holiday classics. With special musical guest Marah!

The story of Reverend Carlton Pearson. He was a rising star in the evangelical movement when he cast aside the idea of hell and, with it, everything he'd worked for over his entire life.

Variations on an old tale, with very modern consequences. Cambodia is competing with other nations for the business of big clothing companies all over the world...but they've vowed to follow fair labor practices. Other countries end up with the contracts, and the profits.

Someone once said, "If you're not willing to be changed by a place, there's no point in going." This week, stories about what happens when you land in a whole new world.

Stories about the lengths we go to make things right, and about what money can and cannot fix.

About a year ago, a study estimated the number of Iraqi casualties since the war began at 100,000 dead—higher than any other estimate. The study was mostly ignored. Alex Blumberg revisits that study to look at the reality behind it. In Act One he reports that not only is the study probably accurate, but it says that most of the deaths were caused by coalition forces (despite concerted efforts to a...

Stories about people and places that have come back to life after everything seemed lost.

How far will we go to get money? And once we've got it, what should we spend it on? The first half of this show is on making money, and the second half on spending it.

It's the largest mass resettlement that America has seen since the Civil War, as over 400,000 people—victims of Hurricane Katrina—try to find a new place to live. From the Houston Astrodome to an abandoned New Orleans street, stories of people looking for home...and finding something else.

Surprising stories from survivors in New Orleans. We give people who were in the storm more time than daily news coverage can to tell their stories and talk about what they're thinking. This leads to a number of ideas that haven't made it into the regular news coverage.

Stories about being sucked into something against your will. In one story, a 9/11 widow finds herself having to comfort another distraught woman on national TV. And in a story by Nick Hornby, a boy is forced to play soccer to save his nation.

Stories of people and institutions who are worried about what the world thinks of them, and who take action...decisive action.

Stories about the pitfalls of knowing just a little bit too little.

The U.S. government spent two years on a sting operation trapping an Indian man named Hemant Lakhani, whom they suspected of being an illegal arms dealer. It's one of the few cases that has gone to trial in the War on Terror, and one the Justice Department has pointed to as one of their big successes. In the end, they got Lakhani, red-handed, delivering a missile to a terrorist in New Jersey. The...

Stories about getting back together with your parent, your spouse, your ... Brahman bull. And how it never goes the way you think it's going to.

At a time when House Majority Leader Tom Delay calls for enacting a "Biblical world view" in government, when Christians are asserting their ideals in the selection of judges, in public school science classes and elsewhere, This American Life spends an hour trying to remember why anyone liked the separation of church and state in the first place.