This American Life (Unofficial)

Host Ira Glass and playwright David Hauptschein took out advertisements in Chicago inviting people to come to a small theater with letters they've received, sent, or found.

Evocative, funny, emotional stories collected over the last few months that haven't fit into any of our regular "theme" shows.

Unusual stories from the 1996 Democratic Convention in Chicago, with scenes and moments not documented elsewhere.

Host Ira Glass spent a Saturday night — from 9:00 p.m. until dawn the next morning — at one of the most frenetic, joyous, efficient, angry, boisterous hot dog stands in the nation: Chicago's own Wiener Circle.

Unusual stories about day-to-day life at the Republican Convention.

Stories of people whose lives are transformed by music.

Stories of obsession and compulsion. What happens when a little idea starts to control you. Co-hosted by Paul Tough.

Unusual perspectives on the presumptive Republican nominee.

Writer David Sedaris recalls the days when his mother and sister played armchair detective — until a very odd crime wave hit within their own home. Plus, host Ira Glass goes out on surveillance with a real-life private eye.

Stories about kids being mean to each other, including a mysterious handbook for bullies, a surprising experiment conducted by a teacher who wants to make kids be nice, and a story of youthful backstabbing told by David Sedaris.

Ira's own father, Barry Glass, co-hosts this special Father's Day show.

A set of documentary stories, radio essays and monologues about basketball, the Chicago Bulls, and their grip on Chicagoans' hearts and lives during the NBA playoffs.

Stories of girls who have to figure out how they're going to act when the ground rules are constantly shifting.

Stories of the people who fall for a life in the theater.

Stories of the difficult relationships between parents and their grown children, including two long stories from Sandra Tsing Loh about her father.

A show about something most people have gone through. Friends get together to start a business, start a church, do political action together. And after a while, they start fighting and split up. We hear three true stories.

Stories of hero worship, of people admiring someone from afar, and trying to get closer to them.

Men who had comfortable, decent lives, yet decided to do something wild and eccentric with their lives instead.

April first is the one day of the year when we're allowed to enjoy deceiving others. But April Fools' Day is for amateur deceivers. The real pros are the people who can't control their lying, who lie without even knowing what the truth is. Everyone's known someone like this, but it's a topic that's only rarely studied or discussed publicly. Journalist and former This American Life contributing editor Margy Rochlin co-hosts.

Our first show as This American Life.

Stories of politics, the economy, and the big picture.

Writer Jack Hitt goes on a search for a mysterious neighbor from his childhood in Charleston, South Carolina, and stumbles onto an epic story of the Old South, the New South, gender confusion, Chihuahuas, and changing values in American journalism.

What unites these stories on the surface is that they're all made from old tapes, recordings found in attics and thrift stores. What unites them under that surface — and not far under it — is that they all end up being stories about fathers and the legacies that fathers leave their children.

Explorations of the dream of true love and the difficulties with achieving and maintaining that dream.

Stories about the animalness of animals, the irreducible ways in which they are not human.

A story of a friendship between two adolescent boys that was destroyed through the manipulative acts of one of them.

People living their lives, just like the rest of us. Plus an extra life.

When comedian Julia Sweeney and her brother both got cancer, she decided to tell the story the best way she knew how: in a comedy club. It might seem like a strange choice, but what resulted is halfway between standup comedy and true-life diary entries.

Stories that reflect back on 1995.

Stories of people who quit everything in their lives that they hated—and what happened to them afterwards.

Stories that reveal the societal "trend" toward anger and away from genuine forgiveness.

Stories about vacations gone awry—or perhaps vacations that never should have happened.

Stories decrying the wonders of turkeys, chickens, and other fowl.

Small-scale stories on the nature of small-scale sin.

Our program's very first broadcast.