The actress and director says the world of filmmaking needs a ?full system break.?

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Warning: This episode contains strong language and mentions of suicide.

Over the past year, the federal government has taken a series of actions widely seen as attacks on the First Amendment.

Greg Lukianoff, the head of a legal defense group called the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, speaks to Natalie Kitroeff about what free speech really means and why both the left and the right end up betraying it.

Guest: Greg Lukianoff, the president and chief executive of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.

Background reading: 

Photo: Moriah Ratner for The New York Times

For more information on today?s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

President Trump on Tuesday delivered blatantly xenophobic public remarks, which included attacking Somali immigrants in Minnesota and calling them ?garbage.?

Ernesto Londoño, a reporter based in Minnesota, explains how Somalis became the president?s latest target in his effort to reshape America?s relationship to its immigrant communities.

Guest: Ernesto Londoño, a reporter for The New York Times based in Minnesota.

Background reading: 

For more information on today?s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Over the past three months, the U.S. military has been firing on boats from South America, killing more than 80 people and prompting Democrats to raise urgent questions about their legality.

Now, one of these operations, which killed survivors with a second missile, has prompted congressional Republicans to join those calls for accountability.

Charlie Savage, who covers national security for The New York Times, explains the renewed debate and how the administration is justifying its actions.

Guest: Charlie Savage, who covers national security and legal policy for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

Photo: Tierney L. Cross/The New York Times

For more information on today?s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

The holiday season is here, which means it?s the time to think of great gifts for everyone on your list. While it can feel like a daunting task to choose thoughtful, personalized presents, we?ve got a fix for you: books.

On this edition of The Sunday Special, Gilbert is joined by Joumana Khatib and Sadie Stein, editors at the Book Review, for a conversation about the best books to give your family and friends. Joumana and Sadie will share what excited them most this year and also provide recommendations for giftees in very specific categories.

Books mentioned in this episode:

?The Colony,? Annika Norlin
?Perfection,? Vincenzo Latronico
?Things: A Story of the 60s,? Georges Perec
?The Bee Sting,? Paul Murray
?The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny,? Kiran Desai
?The Director,? Daniel Kehlmann
?Playworld: A Novel,? Adam Ross
?A Marriage at Sea,? Sophie Elmhirst
?Entertaining is Fun!,? Dorothy Draper
?The Thursday Murder Club,? Richard Osman
?The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels,? Janice Hallett
?Roald Dahl?s Revolting Recipes,? Roald Dahl
?Mrs. Manders? Cook Book,? Sarah Manders, edited by Rumer Godden
?Halleluja! The Welcome Table,? Maya Angelou
?The Pat Conroy Cookbook: Recipes of My Life,? Pat Conroy
?Les diners de Gala,? Salvador Dalí
?Diaghilev?s Empire: How the Ballets Russes Enthralled the World,? Rupert Christiansen
?Finishing the Hat and Look I Made a Hat,? Stephen Sondheim
?Tonight in Jungleland: The Making of Born to Run,? Peter Ames Carlin
?The Uncool: A Memoir,? Cameron Crowe
?The Gales of November,? John U. Bacon
?The Journals of Ralph Waldo Emerson,? Ralph Waldo Emerson
?Cats in Color,? Stevie Smith
?Archie and the Strict Baptists,? John Betjeman
?Stories 1,2,3,4,? Eugène Ionesco
?Trip: A Novel,? Amy Barrodale

On Today?s Episode:

Joumana Khatib is an editor at The New York Times Book Review.

Sadie Stein is an editor at The New York Times Book Review.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

?Wicked? was one of the biggest movies of 2024. It was culturally ubiquitous, a box office smash and an Oscar nominee for Best Picture. Now, a year later, ?Wicked: For Good? arrives in theaters to finish the tale of the complicated friendship between Glinda the Good Witch and Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West. Can ?Wicked: For Good? be the sensation that its predecessor was? Will it inject new life into a movie business that has suffered a historically bad business year? Will it satisfy the legions of ?Wicked? fans who have been waiting to see their favorite musical brought to the big screen?

Gilbert Cruz is joined by Kyle Buchanan, a pop culture reporter for The New York Times who profiled the stars of ?Wicked,? and Madison Malone Kircher, a reporter for the Styles desk and affirmed ?Wicked? fanatic, to discuss what ?Wicked: For Good? means for the movies.

On Today?s Episode

Madison Malone Kircher is a reporter covering internet culture for The Times.

Kyle Buchanan is a pop culture reporter and serves as The Projectionist, the awards season columnist for The New York Times.

Photo: Universal Pictures

Additional Reading

Ariana Grande Still Has Surprises in Store

There Have Been Dozens of ?Wicked? Interviews. Why Did This One Go Viral?

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

There was once a time when documentaries could be found only on public television or in art-house cinemas. But today, documentaries are more popular and accessible than ever, with streaming services serving up true crime, celebrity documentaries, music documentaries and so much more.

On today?s Sunday Special, Gilbert is joined by The New York Times?s chief television critic, James Poniewozik, and Alissa Wilkinson, a Times film critic, to talk about the documentaries that are worth your viewing time.

On Today?s Episode:

James Poniewozik is the chief TV critic for The Times.

Alissa Wilkinson is a movie critic at The Times, and writes the Documentary Lens column.

Background Reading:

What ?The American Revolution? Says About Our Cultural Battles

?Come See Me in the Good Light?: The Sweetness After a Terminal Diagnosis

Discussed on this episode:

?The American Revolution,? 2025, directed by Ken Burns, Sarah Botstein and David Schmidt

?The Alabama Solution,? 2025, directed by Andrew Jarecki and Charlotte Kaufman

?The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst,? 2015, directed by Andrew Jarecki

?Making a Murderer,? 2015, directed by Laura Ricciardi and Moira Demos

?The Yogurt Shop Murders,? 2025, directed by Margaret Brown

?The Perfect Neighbor,? 2025, directed by Beet Gandbhir

?The Last Dance,? 2020, directed by Jason Hehir

?Copa 71,? 2023, directed by Rachel Ramsay and James Erkine

?Cheer,? 2020, created by Greg Whiteley

?Last Chance U,? 2016, directed by Greg Whiteley, Adam Ridley and Luke Lorentzen

?Pee-wee as Himself,? 2025, directed by Matt Wolf

?The Remarkable Life of Ibelin,? 2024, directed by Benjamin Ree

?Ladies & Gentlemen ? 50 Years of SNL Music,? 2025, directed by Questlove

?Cameraperson,? 2016, directed by Kirsten Johnson

?An American Family,? 1973, created by Craig Gilbert

?Look Into My Eyes,? 2024, directed by Lana Wilson

?When We Were Kings,? 1996, directed by Leon Gast

Photo: Mike Doyle/American Revolution Film Project and Florentine Films

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

This year has been a banner year for video games, with an abundance of surprise releases and unexpected hits.

On this week?s Sunday Special, Gilbert Cruz talks with two fellow gamers ? Zachary Small, a culture reporter, and Jason Bailey, an editor on The Times?s culture desk ? about the state of the industry, the biggest releases and the games they loved playing in 2025. They also share their predictions for Game of the Year.

On Today?s Episode

Zachary Small is a culture reporter for The Times.

Jason M. Bailey is an editor on the culture desk, and oversees The Times?s video game coverage.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

The only thing Gilbert Cruz loves more than celebrating Halloween is watching scary movies. And between the classic horror franchises that span decades and the prestige original films of the current moment, he has seen hundreds of them.

On today?s episode, Gilbert puts his knowledge to use in conversation with his fellow horror aficionados Jason Zinoman and Erik Piepenburg. They comb through a century of spooks, frights and screams to crown the Top 10 franchises in cinema history.

Horror franchises discussed on this episode:

?A Nightmare on Elm Street?
?A Quiet Place?
?Alien?
?The Amityville Horror?
?Candyman?
?Child?s Play?
?The Conjuring?
?The Exorcist?
?The Evil Dead?
?Final Destination?
?Friday the 13th?
?Halloween?
The Hannibal Lecter films
?Hellraiser?
?The Hills Have Eyes?
?Insidious?
?Jaws?
?Night of the Living Dead?
?The Omen?
?Paranormal Activity?
?Phantasm?
?Poltergeist?
?Psycho?
?The Purge?
?The Ring?
?Saw?
?Scream?
?Terrifier?
?The Texas Chainsaw Massacre?
The Universal monster films
?V/H/S?
 

On Today?s Episode:

Jason Zinoman is a critic at large for The Times and the author of ?Shock Value: How a Few Eccentric Outsiders Gave Us Nightmares, Conquered Hollywood, and Invented Modern Horror.?

Erik Piepenburg covers culture for The Times, and writes a monthly column about horror movies.

Additional Reading:

25 Jump Scares That Still Make Us Jump

Five Horror Movies to Stream Now

?Good Boy? Review: Sit. Stay. Scream.

Photo: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

On Friday, ?Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere? will be released in theaters. Rather than chronicling Bruce?s entire life, the film focuses on the making of his stripped-down 1982 album ?Nebraska? and on his concurrent mental health struggles.

This movie is the latest in a long history of musician biopics featuring stars like Bob Dylan, Loretta Lynn, Eminem and Elvis Presley. Hollywood clearly loves telling the stories of influential artists.

In this episode, Gilbert Cruz chats with Lindsay Zoladz, a pop music critic for The Times, and Joe Coscarelli, a Times culture reporter, about the tropes of the genre and their favorite films that break the mold.

On Today?s Episode:

Lindsay Zoladz, a pop music critic at The Times and the writer of The Amplifier newsletter.

Joe Coscarelli, a culture reporter at The Times and co-host of ?Popcast.?

Additional Reading:

The Boss Finally Gets a Biopic, Just Not the One We Expected

He?s Ringo. And Nobody Else Is.

Why Music Movies Stink: ?Back to Black? + ?The Idea of You? Reactions

Joe Coscarelli?s ?Bobby + Joanie? playlist

Photo: 20th Century Studios

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Broadway represents some of the best and most exciting of what American theater has to offer. But for many people, it?s inaccessible. Whether because of geography, cost or other considerations, most people will never sit in a Broadway theater and experience a play or a musical in person.

For years, cast recordings have offered a way to experience Broadway shows at a remove. And now, in the streaming era, some Broadway shows are making themselves available to be watched remotely, in movie theaters and on television. Distance and expense aren?t the impediments they once were to culture lovers looking to experience world-class theater.

In this episode, Gilbert Cruz talks with Jesse Green and Elisabeth Vincentelli, two of The New York Times?s culture writers, about new ways to experience some of the joys of theater from the comfort of your own home.

On Today?s Episode:

Jesse Green is a Culture correspondent, focusing primarily on the fine arts, including theater, classical music and art.

Elisabeth Vincentelli writes about culture for The Times.

Background Reading:

Want to Listen to Musical Cast Albums? Our Top 10 Desert Island Picks

Theater to Stream: Mark Rylance in ?Twelfth Night,? and More

Times Theater Fans on Their Favorite Musical Cast Albums

Photo Illustration by The New York Times; Inset: Disney+

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Amusement parks are enduring vacation destinations for American families. The rides, the long lines for rides, the concessions, the long lines for concessions ? these are practically familial rites of passage. Theme parks are also enormous moneymakers, with industry leaders such as Disney and Universal earning billions of dollars each year from their parks.

In this episode, Gilbert Cruz chats with Brooks Barnes, who writes about show business (including theme parks), and Mekado Murphy, a film editor and thrill-seeker who reports on roller coasters. They talk about the state of the contemporary amusement park and the ups and downs of roller coasters around the world.

On Today?s Episode:

Mekado Murphy is the assistant film editor for The New York Times, and its unofficial roller coaster correspondent.

Brooks Barnes covers Hollywood for The New York Times.

Background Reading:

Riding Your Way Through Epic Universe

See the Real Live Man Who Grew Up in a Carnival

Photo: Business Wire/Associated Press

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

This month kicked off the big four fashion weeks: New York, London, Milan and Paris. Each year, designers, brands, influencers and celebrities flock to these events to see and be seen.

On today?s episode, Gilbert sits down with Stella Bugbee and Jacob Gallagher, two of The Times?s foremost style experts and veterans of the fashion week circuit, to discuss clothes. They talk about what fashion week means in the frenetic fashion ecosystem of 2025, and they answer some listener questions about how to cultivate a personal style.
 

On Today?s Episode:

Stella Bugbee, the Styles editor for The New York Times.

Jacob Gallagher, a fashion reporter for The New York Times.

Background Reading:

Armani?s Influence on New York Fashion Week

Photo: Simbarashe Cha

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

This month, The Times released a list of the 50 best restaurants in America. The Food desk?s reporters, critics and editors crisscrossed the country from Portland, Ore., to Deer Isle, Maine, to scout places formal and casual, big and small, experimental and classic. Their survey is an evocation of what it?s like to dine out, right now, in America.

On today?s episode, Gilbert sits down with the Food reporters Priya Krishna and Brett Anderson, two contributors to the list, for a veritable feast of dining wisdom. They discuss what makes a restaurant worthy of the 50 best list, how they go about finding those restaurants, and the dining trends they?re loving and hating in 2025.

On Today?s Episode:

Priya Krishna, reporter and video host for New York Times Food and Cooking

Brett Anderson, reporter for New York Times Food and Cooking

Background Reading:

America?s Best Restaurants 2025

Photo: Chase Castor for The New York Times

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

The 77th Primetime Emmy Awards ceremony is tonight, honoring the best television shows released between June 2024 and May 2025. But before the festivities begin, Gilbert Cruz, the editor of The New York Times Book Review, would like to have a TV celebration of his own.

On today?s episode, he gathers Jason Zinoman, a critic at large for The Times, and Alexis Soloski, a culture reporter for The Times, to ?channel surf? through some of their favorite shows of the past year.

On Today?s Episode:

Jason Zinoman, a critic at large for The New York Times who writes a column about comedy.

Alexis Soloski, a culture reporter for The New York Times.
 

Additional Reading:

The 9 People Who Check In to Every ?White Lotus?

Sympathy for the Devil, er Boss: In ?The Studio,? the Powerful Are on Defense

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

As kids across America head back to school, Gilbert Cruz, the editor of The New York Times Book Review, is thinking about the books he read when he was in school.

On today?s Sunday Special, Gilbert talks with the Book Review editor Sadie Stein and the author Louis Sachar (?Wayside School? series, ?Holes?) about the books they read when they were students, and ways to encourage young readers today to keep reading.

Additional reading

10 Books for Kids Starting Preschool

12 Books for Kids Starting Kindergarten

15 Books for Kids Starting Middle School

For a future Sunday Special, ask us your personal style questions.

Photo: Brett Coomer / Houston Chronicle, via Getty Images

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Welcome to the Sunday Special, running now through the end of the year. Every Sunday, Gilbert Cruz, the editor of The New York Times Book Review, will talk with a rotating cast of Times critics and culture and lifestyle reporters about ?the fun stuff?? pop culture, movies, TV, music, fashion and more.

On today?s inaugural episode, Gilbert sits down with Jon Caramanica, a pop music critic at The Times, and Madison Malone Kircher, an internet reporter at The Times, to recap their cultural highs and lows of this summer.

Photo: Stephane Mahe / Reuters

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Rachel Abrams and Natalie Kitroeff officially join Michael Barbaro as co-hosts of the show. Welcome to the next chapter.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

When Taffy Brodesser-Akner became a writer, Mr. Lindenblatt, the father of one of her oldest friends, began asking to tell his story of survival during the Holocaust in one of the magazines or newspapers she wrote for. He took pride in telling his story, in making sure he fulfilled what he felt was the obligation of all Holocaust survivors, which was to remind the world what had happened to the Jews.

His daughter Ilana knew it was a long shot but felt obligated to pass on the request ? it was her father, after all. Taffy declined because after a life hearing about the Holocaust, she said, she was ?all Holocausted out.?

But, years later, when she learned of Mr. Lindenblatt?s imminent passing, Taffy asked herself what would become of stories like his if the generation of hers that was supposed to inherit them had taken the privilege that came with another generation?s survival and decided not to listen?

So here it is, an old Jewish story about the Holocaust and a man who somehow survived the pernicious, organized and intentional genocide of the Jews. But right behind it, just two generations later, is another story, one about the children and grandchildren who have been so malformed by the stories that are their lineage that some of them made just as eager work of running from it, only to find themselves, same as anything you run from, having to deal with it anyway.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Sometime in the 1850s or ?60s, at a terrible moment in U.S. history, a strange man seemed to sprout, out of nowhere, into the rocky landscape between New York City and Hartford, Conn. The word ?strange? hardly captures his strangeness. He was rough and hairy, and he wandered around on back roads, sleeping in caves. Above all, he refused to explain himself. As one newspaper put it: ?He is a mystery, and a very greasy and ill-odored one.? Other papers referred to him as ?the animal? or (just throwing up their hands) ?this uncouth and unkempt ?What is it???

But the strangest thing about the stranger was his suit.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Today, millions of Americans will have the opportunity to see a rare total solar eclipse.

Fred Espenak, a retired astrophysicist known as Mr. Eclipse, was so blown away by an eclipse he saw as a teenager that he dedicated his life to traveling the world and seeing as many as he could.

Mr. Espenak discusses the eclipses that have punctuated and defined the most important moments in his life, and explains why these celestial phenomena are such a wonder to experience.

Guest: Fred Espenak, a.k.a. ?Mr. Eclipse,? a former NASA astrophysicist and lifelong eclipse chaser.

Background reading: 

For more information on today?s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Jeanna Smialek, who covers the U.S. economy for The Times, will be 33 in a few weeks; she is part of a cohort born in 1990 and 1991 that makes up the peak of America?s population.

At every life stage, that microgeneration has stretched a system that was often too small to accommodate it, leaving its members ? so-called peak millennials ? with outsize economic power but also a fight to get ahead.

Guest: Jeanna Smialek, a U.S. economy correspondent for The New York Times.

Background reading: 

For more information on today?s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

Fifty years ago, eight Americans set off for South America to climb Aconcagua, one of the world?s mightiest mountains. Things quickly went wrong. Two climbers died. Their bodies were left behind.

Here is what was certain: A woman from Denver, maybe the most accomplished climber in the group, had last been seen alive on the glacier. A man from Texas, part of the recent Apollo missions to the moon, lay frozen nearby.

There were contradictory statements from survivors and a hasty departure. There was a judge who demanded an investigation into possible foul play. There were three years of summit-scratching searches to find and retrieve the bodies.

Now, decades later, a camera belonging to one of the deceased climbers has emerged from a receding glacier near the summit and one of mountaineering?s most enduring mysteries has been given air and light.

This story was recorded by Audm. To hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

It was meant to mark the start of their lives out of college, but the adventure quickly turned into a nightmare. Beginning with what seemed to be a lucky whale sighting, three friends set out on a sea-kayaking trip through Glacier Bay National Park in Alaska, watching out for bears, and having a good time, when tragedy struck.

In recounting the days preceding and following the accident, which seriously injured one of his friends, the Times journalist Jon Mooallem explains how he was forced to reckon with his fears. Detailing the incident?s surprising repercussions, he muses on the importance of overcoming one?s fears, and finding poetry in life?s darkest moments.

This story was written by Jon Mooallem. To hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

On June 24, 2015, Dawn Dorland, an essayist and aspiring novelist, did perhaps the kindest, most consequential thing she might ever do in her life. She donated one of her kidneys ? and elected to do it in a slightly unusual and particularly altruistic way. As a so-called nondirected donation, her kidney was not meant for anyone in particular, but for a recipient who may otherwise have no other living donor.

Several weeks before the surgery, Ms. Dorland decided to share her truth with others. She started a private Facebook group, inviting family and friends, including some fellow writers from GrubStreet, the Boston writing center where she had spent many years learning her craft.

After her surgery, she posted something to her group: a heartfelt letter she?d written to the final recipient of the surgical chain, whoever they may be. Ms. Dorland noticed some people she?d invited into the group hadn?t seemed to react to any of her posts. On July 20, she wrote an email to one of them: a writer named Sonya Larson.

A year later, Ms. Dorland learned that Ms. Larson had written a story about a woman who received a kidney. Ms. Larson told Ms. Dorland that it was ?partially inspired? by how her imagination took off after learning of Ms. Dorland?s donation.

Art often draws inspiration from life ? but what happens when it?s your life?

This story was recorded by Audm. To hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.