Significant Others

In this month’s bonus episode, Liza is joined by Dr. Emily Wilson, the first woman to translate Homer’s The Odyssey into English. Liza and Dr. Wilson explore the vital but often underrecognized role of a literary translator, why she set out to translate The Odyssey and The Iliad, and the attention she pays to characters who historically have been dismissed in these works.

We’re working hard on Season 2! Until then we will be releasing special bonus episodes from time to time. Want to support the show? Rate and review wherever you listen to your podcasts, and keep sending suggestions of Significant Others you’d like to hear about our way at [email protected]!

In this bonus episode, Liza is joined by Academy Award-winning screenwriter Eric Roth to discuss the often invisible craft of screenwriting. Eric shares his process of adapting a book to film, the relationship between screenwriter and director, and what it was like working with Martin Scorsese on Killers of the Flower Moon.

We’re working hard on Season 2! Until then we will be releasing special bonus episodes from time to time. Want to support the show? Rate and review wherever you listen to your podcasts, and keep sending suggestions of Significant Others you’d like to hear about our way at [email protected]!

In this month’s bonus episode, Liza is joined by Benjamin Binstock, art historian and author of Vermeer’s Family Secrets: Genius, Discovery, and the Unknown Apprentice, to discuss the historical examination of Vermeer’s works and the possibility that perhaps there was another hand at play. 

We’re working hard on Season 2! Until then we will be releasing special bonus episodes from time to time. Want to support the show? Rate and review wherever you listen to your podcasts, and keep sending suggestions of Significant Others you’d like to hear about our way at [email protected]!

Bonus Episode: Laurie Sandell on Ruth Madoff

In this month’s bonus episode, Liza is joined by Laurie Sandell, author of Truth and Consequences: Life Inside the Madoff Family, to discuss Ruth Madoff and her role in the Madoff scandal. Laurie and Liza dive into who Ruth Madoff was as a person, her relationship with Bernie, and if she has any regrets.

We’re working hard on Season 2! Until then we will be releasing special bonus episodes from time to time. Want to support the show? Rate and review wherever you listen to your podcasts, and keep sending suggestions of Significant Others you’d like to hear about our way at [email protected]!

On this month’s bonus episode, Liza is joined by Dr. Mali Heled Kinberg, UCLA faculty lecturer and holder of a doctorate in English Literature from Cambridge University, to discuss the fascinating and unique relationship between literary giant James Joyce and his partner, Nora Barnacle. Liza and Mali explore Nora’s profound influence on her husband and the scandalous letters the two exchanged throughout their relationship.

We’re working hard on Season 2! Until then we will be releasing special bonus episodes from time to time. Want to support the show? Rate and review wherever you listen to your podcasts, and keep sending suggestions of Significant Others you’d like to hear about our way at [email protected]!

In this month’s bonus episode, Liza is joined by Marc Grossman who was speechwriter, press secretary, and personal aide to Cesar Chavez for 24 years. Marc shares his unique insight into the marriage of Cesar and Helen Chavez, and how Helen was a powerful force in her own right and became the mother of the United Farm Workers’ movement. 

We’re working hard on Season 2! Until then we will be releasing special bonus episodes from time to time. Want to support the show? Rate and review wherever you listen to your podcasts, and keep sending suggestions of Significant Others you’d like to hear about our way at [email protected]!

In this month’s bonus episode, we celebrate Mother’s Day! Liza is joined by bestselling author Anna Malaika Tubbs to discuss her book, The Three Mothers: How the Mothers of Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and James Baldwin Shaped a Nation. Anna and Liza dive into the lives of these incredible mothers who have historically been ignored, and they acknowledge their roles in raising and shaping sons who forever changed the course of our nation.  

We’re working hard on Season 2! Until then we will be releasing special bonus episodes from time to time. Want to support the show? Rate and review wherever you listen to your podcasts, and keep sending suggestions of Significant Others you’d like to hear about our way at [email protected]! 

The Three Mothers: How the Mothers of Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and James Baldwin Shaped a Nation by Anna Malaika Tubbs

The Life of Louise Norton Little by Deborah Jones

The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson

In this month’s bonus episode, Liza is joined by Elizabeth Winkler, author of the new book Shakespeare Was a Woman and Other Heresies to discuss this question of Shakespeare’s authorship. Elizabeth and Liza dive into the compelling evidence that Shakespeare could have in fact been a woman and explore why even the thought of questioning his authorship is so taboo.

Elizabeth's original article for The Atlantic can be found here.

We’re working hard on Season 2! Until then we will be releasing special bonus episodes from time to time. Want to support the show? Rate and review wherever you listen to your podcasts, and keep sending suggestions of Significant Others you’d like to hear about our way at [email protected]!

Significant Others is bringing you another bonus episode! This time Liza is joined by Mo Rocca, the host of the popular podcast Mobituaries, to discuss how people are remembered through their obituaries. Mo and Liza dive into memorable obituaries, what makes a powerful obit, and who maybe didn’t get their proper due. 

We’re working hard on Season 2! Until then we will be releasing special bonus episodes from time to time. Want to support the show? Rate and review wherever you listen to your podcasts, and keep sending suggestions of Significant Others you’d like to hear about our way at [email protected]!

Significant Others is back with another bonus episode! Liza is joined by historian Heather Cox Richardson, host of the podcast Now & Then, and author of one of the most successful Substacks of all time, Letters From An American. Heather and Liza dive into presidential marriages and ask, who was the best love match? Which overlooked first ladies deserve some more credit? And which presidential relationships were doomed from the start?

We’re working hard on Season 2! Until then, we will be releasing special bonus episodes from time to time. Want to support the show? Rate and review wherever you listen to your podcasts and keep sending suggestions of Significant Others you’d like to hear about our way at [email protected]!

CNN anchor Jake Tapper joins Liza in another special bonus episode to discuss how a 2-party system can look a little bit like a long-term marriage… that neither partner actually signed up for. How has this relationship evolved over the years and in what ways do the parties rely on each other? Liza and Jake discuss all this and more. 

We’re working hard on Season 2! Until then, we will be releasing special bonus episodes from time to time. Want to support the show? Rate and review wherever you listen to your podcasts and keep sending suggestions of Significant Others you’d like to hear about our way at [email protected]!

Significant Others is back with another bonus episode! Liza is joined by Dana Schwartz, host of the popular podcast Noble Blood, which explores the stories of the world’s most fascinating nobles. Today, Dana takes us on a crash course through the complicated dynamics of royal marriages and answers our burning questions! What set Catherine the Great apart? Did Anne Boleyn play her cards right? And who was the first appointed royal spouse that was male? Turns out that relationships aren't so easy when your nation depends on their success. Who knew?

We’re working hard on Season 2! Until then, we will be releasing special bonus episodes from time to time. Want to support the show? Rate and review wherever you listen to your podcasts and keep sending suggestions of Significant Others you’d like to hear about our way at [email protected]!

Significant Others is back with a bonus episode! Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Stacy Schiff returns to discuss her new book The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams, which examines the essential (and somewhat forgotten) role of Samuel Adams during the Revolutionary War. Liza and Stacy explore why he has become more known as “the beer guy” than for his contributions to the cause, and ask - was Samuel Adams the Significant Other of the American Revolution? 

We’re working hard on Season 2! Until then, we will be releasing special bonus episodes from time to time. Want to support the show? Rate and review wherever you listen to your podcasts and keep sending suggestions of Significant Others you’d like to hear about our way!

Best-selling author and journalist Malcolm Gladwell joins Liza to discuss the concept of “celebrity doctors” and the destructive dynamic between the famous Dr. Spock and his complicated wife Jane.

The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care altered parenting forever and made Dr. Benjamin Spock a household name. But his wife Jane, who not only helped him get the book down on paper but introduced him to the very concepts that were so revolutionary in his work, was ruined by his success.

Source List:

Dr. Spock, An American Life, by Thomas Maier

​​Doctor Spock: Biography of a Conservative Radical, by Lynn Z. Bloom

“Public vs. Private: Dr. Spock, Mr. Hyde,” by Mary Jo Kochakian

“Parents and Dr. Spock”, American Archive of Public Broadcasting

“The Man Who Raised America,” by Susan Bolotin

“The Spocks: Bittersweet. Recognition in a Revised Classic,” by Judy Klemesrud

“Jane C. Spock, 82, Worked on Baby Book,” The New York Times

Christian Nurture, by Horace Bushnell

Horace Bushnell, Britannica 

“The Personal Spock: The Controversial Doctor Recalls His Childhood, Which Was Influenced by a Domineering Mother,” by Elizabeth Mehren

Parenting expert Julie Lythcott-Haims sits down with Liza to explore what parents should and shouldn’t want for their children; and whether or not Sir Leslie Stephen may have gotten some things right.

Virginia Woolf’s father, Sir Leslie Stephen, wanted nothing more than to be a genius—but he created one instead.

Starring: Jameela Jamil as Virginia Woolf and Luke Millington-Drake as Sir Leslie Stephen.

Source List:

“Virginia Woolf and Leslie Stephen: History and Literary Revolution,” by Katherine C. Hill

To The Lighthouse, by Virginia Woolf

A Room of One’s Own, by Virginia Woolf

A Writer’s Diary, by Virginia Woolf

Virginia Woolf, by Hermione Lee

The Common Reader, by Virginia Woolf

Virginia Woolf, Quentin Bell

“A House of One’s Own,” by Janet Malcolm

“A Beautiful Mind - Laura Makepeace Stephen and the Earlswood Asylum Medical Archives,” by Dr. Madeleine Oakley

Bloomsbury Group

“Virginia Woolf and Leslie Stephen,” by Louise A. DeSalvo

Rob Roy, by Sir Walter Scott

Journalist and biographer Mark Harris joins Liza to discuss the legacy of Elia Kazan and whether or not there is such a thing as a happy ending in Hollywood.

Legendary filmmaker Elia Kazan gave us such cinematic classics as On the Waterfront and A Streetcar Named Desire, but he made himself a pariah when he named names to the government. Without his wife, Molly Day Thacher, he might never have made his controversial decision–nor even had a career to begin with.

Starring: Lisa Kudrow as Molly Day Thacher and Paul F. Tompkins as Elia Kazan. Also featuring: Jack McBrayer, Jim Rash, Adam O’Byrne and Larry Powell.

Source List:

A Life, by Elia Kazan

Elia Kazan, by Richard Schickel

Tennessee Williams & Elia Kazan: A Collaboration in the Theatre, by Brenda Murphy

Tennessee Williams, Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh, by John Lahr

“A Statement”, by Elia Kazan

“You Must Remember This” Podcast

Author and comedian W. Kamau Bell joins Liza to discuss the legacies of Maya Angelou and James Baldwin, and the importance of affinity groups.

Without the profound connection between these two artists, would the world ever have gotten I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings?

 Starring: Christina Elmore as Maya Angelou and Larry Powell as James Baldwin. Also starring Angelica Chéri as Lorraine Hansberry.

Source List:

James Baldwin: A Biography, By David Adams Leeming

The Three Mothers, by Anna Malaika Tubbs

Notes of a Native Son, by James Baldwin

At 80, Maya Angelou Reflects on a ‘Glorious’ Life, NPR, 2008

The Collected Autobiographies of Maya Angelou, Compilation copyright 2004 by Random House, Inc.

Conversations With a Native Son

James Baldwin Biographical Timeline, American Masters, PBS

Maya Angelou, World History Project

James Baldwin’s Sexuality: Complex and Influential, NBC News

“James Baldwin on Langston Hughes”,  The Langston Hughes Review, James Baldwin and Clayton Riley 

“Talking Back to Maya Angelou”, by Hilton Als, The New Yorker

“Songbird”, by Hilton Als, The New Yorker

“A Brother’s Love”, by Maya Angelou

“James Baldwin Denounced Richard Wright’s ‘Native Son’ as a ‘Protest Novel,’ Was he Right?” by Ayana Mathis and Pankaj Mishra, The New York Times

“After a 30 Year Absence, the Controversial ‘Porgy and Bess’ is Returning to the Met Opera”, by Brigit Katz, Smithsonian Magazine

“Published More Than 50 Years Ago, ‘I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings’ Launched a Revolution”, by Veronica Chambers, Smithsonian Magazine

“On the Horizon: On Catfish Row”, by James Baldwin

“James Baldwin: Great Writers of the 20th Century” 

“An Introduction to James Baldwin”, National Museum of African American History & Culture

“‘The Blacks,’ Landmark Off-Broadway Show, Gets 42nd Anniversary Staging, Jan 31”, by Robert Simonson, Playbill

 “Do the White Thing”, by Brian Logan

“James Baldwin: The Price of the Ticket”, American Masters, PBS

“James Baldwin, The Art of Fiction”, by Jordan Elgrably

“The American Dream and the American Negro”, by James Baldwin

“The History That James Baldwin Wanted America to See”, by Eddie S. Glaude, Jr.

“Lost and ... Found?: James Baldwin’s Script and Spike Lee’s ‘Malcolm X.’” by D. Quentin Miller, African American Review

Biographer Stacy Schiff joins Liza to discuss the lengths she went to in researching her Pulitzer Prize-winning biography, Véra.

A full list of Stacy Schiff’s books can be found here:

https://www.stacyschiff.com/books-and-essays-by-stacy-schiff.html

Vladimir Nabokov is best known for writing the highly controversial yet critically revered novel, Lolita. But the book might never have made it onto the shelves were it not for the other Nabokov—Vladimir's enigmatic and elusive wife, Véra.

Starring: D’Arcy Carden as Véra Nabokov and Dan Bucatinsky as Vladimir Nabokov

Source list:

Véra by Stacy Schiff

Letters to Véra by Vladimir Nabokov, Ed: Olga Voronina and Brian Boyd

Vladimir Nabokov, The Russian Years by Brian Boyd

Vladimir Nabokov, The American Years by Brian Boyd

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

Lectures on Literature by Vladimir Nabokov, Ed: Fredson Bowers

Liza is joined by her significant other, self-proclaimed Lincoln super-fan Conan O’Brien, to discuss how crucial Mary Lincoln was to her husband's political career.

Mary Lincoln is the First Lady everyone loves to hate. But without her, would Abe Lincoln even have been president in the first place? Theirs is a love story that contains many tragedies—and a key to how America became the country it is today. 
Starring: Rita Wilson as Mary Lincoln and Timothy Olyphant as Abraham Lincoln. Also featuring Matt Gourley and Mike Sweeney.
 

Source List:

Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, by Doris Kearns Goodwin

Miller Center, The University of Virginia, www.millercenter.org

The Lincolns: Portrait of a Marriage, by Daniel Mark Epstein

Mary Todd Lincoln: A Biography, by Jean H. Baker

“Lincoln’s Looks Never Hindered His Approach to Life or Politics,” by Susan Bell, USC News

“Mary Todd Lincoln, Patient at Bellevue Place, Batavia.” by Rodney A. Ross., Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society

“Acts of Remembrance: Mary Todd Lincoln and Her Husband’s Memory.” by Jennifer L. Bach, Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association

“New Mary Lincoln Letter Discovered.” by Jason Emerson, Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society

Playwright Dipika Guha joins Liza to give insight into the complicated relationship between her home country of India and Gandhi's legacy in this time of call-out culture.

Mohandas Gandhi helped India win independence from Britain through nonviolent resistance but little know that he credits the inspiration for his tactics to his wife, Kasturba. So, who was the wife of this renowned saint?

Starring Dipika Guha as Kasturba Gandhi and Samrat Chakrabarti as Mohandas Gandhi.

Source List:

The Woman Beside Gandhi: A Biography of Kasturba, Wife of the Mahatma, by Sita Kapadia

Gandhi on Women, by Madhu Kishwar, Economic and Political Weekly, vol. 20, no. 41

Why Mahatma Gandhi Said Kasturba Stood Above Him, Prabhash K Dutta, New Delhi, October 2, 2018

The Truth About Gandhi, The Harvard Crimson

Petty, Bad-Tempered Kasturba - What Gandhi Said While Courting Sarladevi and Esther Faerling, B.M. Bhalla, March 19, 2020

The Story of My Experiments With Truth, by Mohandas Karamchad Gandhi

MAHATMA, In Eight Volumes, by D.G. Tendulkar

Kasturba: A Biography, By B.M. Bhalla

Gandhi Was a Racist Who Forced Young Girls to Sleep in Bed With Him, by Mayukh Sen, December 3, 2015, Vice

Kasturba Gandhi, The Feisty Woman Whose Patience Inspired Gandhi's Call For Satyagraha, by Simrin Sirur, April 11, 2019, The Print

World-renowned psychotherapist Esther Perel joins Liza to discuss the dynamic between Leo and Sophia Tolstoy and whether the issues Sophia faced were a product of the times she lived in.

This bonus episode is a discussion of Episode 1 of Significant Others, "Countess Sophia Tolstoy." Listen to it here. 
 

Leo Tolstoy is widely regarded as one of the greatest authors of all time. Yet, without his wife, Sophia Tolstoy, would the world have been gifted with such literary classics as War and Peace and Anna Karenina? Starring Megan Mullally as Countess Sophia Tolstoy and Nick Offerman as Leo Tolstoy.

Source List:
Tolstoy, A Biography by A.N. Wilson, 1988 WW Norton & Co
Song Without Words: The Photographs & Diaries of Countess Sophia Tolstoy by Leah Bendavid-Val, National Geographic Society
Leo Tolstoy, Diaries, Faber, Ed. R.F. Christian
Tolstoy, Woman and Death by David Holbrook, Farleigh Dickinson University Press
The Diaries of Sophia Tolstoy, Cathy Porter, Harper Collins

Did you know that the novel "Lolita" would not exist if Vladimir Nabokov’s wife hadn’t stopped her husband from burning the manuscript? Or that Gandhi learned his legendary method of passive resistance from his wife? Alongside any famous name, there is often another story to tell—of an intimate relationship that made all the difference. Starting July 20th, join Liza Powel O’Brien as she explores the stories of the little-known individuals just beyond the spotlight of history. Because no one lives in a vacuum—not even geniuses.