The Best of NPR's Fresh Air Interviews

Writer David Foster Wallace was on Fresh Air in 1997 to talk about his collection of essays A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again.

Novelist William Styron talks about his 1990 book Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness in this interview with Fresh Air. Styron recounts his battle with clinical depression in 1985 that led him to near suicide before he checked himself into a hospital and eventually improved.

This interview caught Steve Jobs at an interesting point in his career in 1996, one year before he would return as CEO of Apple. After co-founding Apple with Steve Wozniak in the 1970s, he was pushed out of Apple in 1985.

Andrew Solomon won the 2001 National Book Award for his book The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression. In this Fresh Air interview from 2001, Terry Gross talks with him about the book and the mental illness of depression.

Actor and comedian Paul Reubens gave this interview to Fresh Air back in 2004 when his show Pee-Wee's Playhouse was released on DVD. Terry Gross asks him many questions about the formation of his character Pee-Wee Herman, and Reubens tells humorous anecdotes of how the beloved character came to be.

Scientist Carl Sagan describes what a nuclear winter would be like in this short interview from 1991. He hypothesized what this would be like in his 1990 book A Path Where No Man Thought: Nuclear Winter and the End of the Arms Race.

Hayes rose to the top of the charts in the 1970's on the Staxl record label. He released his first solo album, "Presenting Isaac Hayes," in 1968. His next album, "Hot Buttered Soul," became a gold record in the 1970's.

Louis L'Amour is known as the "most famous obscure novelist." He has written 79 novels, mostly westerns. His novels have also been adapted into films such as "Hondo." L'Amour's latest novel is "Comstock Lode."

Writer and Nobel Peace Prize recipient Elie Wiesel. He's the author of over 30 books. Wiesel, a survivor of the Holocaust, is known for his work which bears witness to that tragedy.

Science writer David Quammen puts the Coronavirus into perspective.