Beautiful West Oakland, California
When global trade reshapes a city, who pays the price—and who fights back?
What We’re Reading
After we finished up The Power Broker, a bunch of people were asking us what other books we’d been reading. A group of us got together and presented some of…
A Beetle By Any Other Name
A tiny, unremarkable beetle hiding in the caves of Slovenia has an infamously unfortunate name—one that has sparked heated debates in the scientific world.
The Brutalists
A film about a struggling architect, a style the world loves to hate—The Brutalist and Brutalism itself share more than just a name. Is it bold vision or concrete failure?
99% Invisible: Ancient DMs
The story of an 2700 year old archive, its accidental preservation, and the unprecedented—and often funny—glimpse it gives us into the daily life of an ancient king.
Spirit Halloween
Each fall, across the United States and Canada, around 1500 empty storefronts are taken up by the signature yellow, orange and black signage of Spirit Halloween. The seasonal retailer sells…
Towers of Silence
this story is about a specific thing but also about how a system collapses when the keystone is removed
Empire of the Sum – 99% Invisible
Whether or not you’re a fan of math, we’ve always had a need to count things. Maybe it’s to figure out the maximum weight an airplane can safely hold, or…
The Six-Week Cure – 99% Invisible
In the mid-1900s, people flocked to Reno, Nevada — not for frontier gold or loose slots, but to get out of bad marriages. The city became known as the “Divorce…
99 Percent Invisible – Episode 561 Long Strange Tape
The Cassette tape was great in so many ways, but let’s be honest, they never really sounded great. But because the cassette was so much cheaper and easier to use…