Mary Childs is a co-host of the podcast Planet Money and the author of The Bond King: How One Man Made a Market, Built an Empire, and Lost It All. “I love aberrations. I love when things go wrong. You get a high stress situation, you get all of the manifestations of personality. We're our most selves, if not our best selves, at those times. I like the [stories] that have embedded in them all of those conduits of power and that reveal the greater system.” Show notes: @mdc marychilds.com Planet Money (NPR) The Bond King: How One Man Made a Market, Built an Empire, and Lost It All (Flatiron • 2022) 26:00 American Bonds: How Credit Markets Shaped the Nation (Sarah L. Quinn • Princeton University Press • 2019) 33:00 The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine (Michael Lewis • Norton • 2010) 33:00 The Bond King: Investment Secrets from PIMCO's Bill Gross (Tim Middleton • Wiley • 2004) 43:00 "J. Screwed" (Planet Money • NPR • May 2020) 43:00 "Banque Worms" (Planet Money • NPR • Jul 2021) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Laurel Braitman is a science writer, the author of Animal Madness: Inside Their Minds, and the founder of Writing Medicine. Her new book is What Looks Like Bravery: An Epic Journey Through Loss to Love. “My life was becoming unmanageable, in a way. I was using success in many ways like a drug, and I’d say like an analgesic on the sorts of difficult feelings I hadn’t wanted to face truly since childhood. And we are rewarded in this culture for these kinds of outward forms of success that often have nothing to do with what’s going on inside of you.” Show notes: @LaurelBraitman laurelbraitman.com 01:00 Pop-Up Magazine 01:00 Animal Madness (Simon & Schuester • 2015) 05:00 “The Strange Tale of Echo, the Parrot Who Saw Too Much” (Atlas Obscura • March 2016) 07:00 Braitman’sTED archive 11:00 “Birds & Bees” (Ira Glass • This American Life • May 2015) 32:00 “Duck Syndrome” (Arifeen Rahman • KQED • July 2019) 40:00 Dear Sugar archive Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Sam Fragoso is a writer, filmmaker, and the host of the podcast Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso. “We have an hour together. We may not have another. We're here for a brief moment and then, you know, we die. And I want this thing to be as good as it can be. If if it's anything less than that, I'm just not interested. … And that, to me, is why you keep doing it: because that feeling when you really feel like you've put someone's life on the record in a way that is beautiful and painful and idiosyncratic and triumphant … when it goes well, it's like I lost 20 pounds. I am never a nicer or happier person than immediately after a taping. I'm kind of goofy and silly and delirious and grateful to be doing this. Like, so fucking grateful.” Show notes: @SamFragoso samfragoso.com 00:00 Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso 08:00 "#1: Matthieu Aikins" (Longform Podcast • Aug 2012) 09:00 "#156: Renata Adler" (Longform Podcast • Sep 2015) 09:00 "#187: Elizabeth Gilbert" (Longform Podcast • Apr 2016) 16:00 "Dr. Ashish Jha" (Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso • Mar 2020) 17:00 "Noam Chomsky" (Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso • Apr 2020) 21:00 "Margaret Atwood" (Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso • Mar 2022) 21:00 "David Byrne" (Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso • Mar 2022) 21:00 "Questlove" (Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso • Feb 2022) 22:00 "Anna Sale" (Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso • Apr 2017) 27:00 "David Sedaris" (Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso • Jun 2022) 52:00 WTF with Marc Maron 54:00 "Live Taping: Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso" (On Air Fest • Feb 2023) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Eric Lach is a staff writer at The New Yorker, where he covers New York. His latest article is “The Mayor and the Con Man.” “I think about my own trajectory, my little generation of journalists—it was easier to get jobs reporting on national politics than to get a job reporting on something that you could see and go to and that is a really strange thing, the relief and the joy that I feel like when I can just take the subway twenty minutes to go see something interesting for a story or talk to somebody interesting or explore physically and not just feel like I’m making phone calls and Googling. It’s a very different kind of work, but it’s just not something that was super available.” Show notes: @Eric Lach Lach on Longform Lach’s New Yorker archive 08:00 "Eric Adams Says He Has Swagger. What Else Does He Have?" (New Yorker • Jan 2022) 12:00 "What is Eric Adams’s Plan for the Riker Island Crisis?" (New Yorker • Jan 2022) 13:00 "Eric Adams Wants to Compstat New York City" (New Yorker • May 2021) 15:00 “Eric Adams Rakes in $7.7 Million, With Help From Wealthy Donors” (Emma G. Fitzsimmons and Dana Rubinstein • New York Times • Oct 2021) 24:00 "Why Do So Many New York Politicians Want Paperboy Prince to Hit Them in the Face with a Pie?" (New Yorker • June 2021) 26:00 "“Pretty Much a Big Mess”: One Iowa Caucus Precinct’s Drama-Filled Night" (New Yorker • Feb 2020) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Willa Paskin, a former TV critic, is the host of the podcast Decoder Ring. “I want it to feel like a trap door. When you push on a trap door, there’s like a little spring. If it’s the right idea, you start to look into it, and you’re like, Oh, it’s giving a little.” Show notes: @willapaskin 00:00 Paskin's Slate archive 00:00 Paskin's Salon archive 00:00 Paskin's Vulture archive 00:00 Decoder Ring (Slate) 00:00 "The Invention of Hydration" (Decoder Ring • Slate • Apr 2021) 00:00 "Cellino & Barnes, Injury Attorneys, 800-888-8888 " (Decoder Ring • Slate • Dec 2022) 01:00 "The Sideways Effect" (Decoder Ring • Slate • May 2022) 03:00 "Why I Became a TV Critic" (Slate • Jan 2016) 38:00 "The Laff Box" (Decoder Ring • Slate • Apr 2018) 38:00 "The Blue Steak Experiment" (Decoder Ring • Slate • Dec 2020) 40:00 "Chuck E. Cheese Pizza War" (Decoder Ring • Slate • Jun 2019) 40:00 "The Cabbage Patch Kids Riots" (Decoder Ring • Slate • Nov 2020) 42:00 "Selling Out" (Decoder Ring • Slate • Aug 2021) 42:00 "The Sign Painter" (Decoder Ring • Slate • Jun 2021) 53:00 "The Butt and the Bustle" (Decoder Ring • Slate • Nov 2022) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices