Dave Davies

Senior reporter for WHYY, contributor to NPR

Dave Davies appears in the following:

With no textbooks or antibiotics, this WWI surgeon pioneered facial reconstruction

Wednesday, July 20, 2022

Medical historian Lindsey Fitzharris tells the story Dr. Harold Gillies, a military surgeon who spent WWI reconstructing the faces of soldiers and sailors who'd suffered horrific facial injuries.

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'Jane the Virgin' writer recounts growing up undocumented in 'Illegally Yours'

Tuesday, July 12, 2022

Rafael Agustin's parents were physicians in Ecuador, but when they came to the U.S. they worked at a car wash and Kmart to get by. It wasn't until he was a teen that he learned they were undocumented.

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A pediatric neurosurgeon reflects on his intense job, and the post-Roe landscape

Wednesday, July 06, 2022

Jay Wellons has operated on children's brains and spinal cords. He knows the anguish of losing a patient and the exhilaration of saving a child's life. His memoir is All That Moves Us.

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A novelist's time in the MMA cage informed his book on memory loss and identity

Tuesday, June 28, 2022

John Vercher trained in mixed martial arts as a young man. His novel, After the Lights Go Out, centers on a veteran MMA fighter who struggles to remember everyday things.

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Fasten your seat belts, flight attendant-turned-novelist shares stories from the sky

Friday, June 24, 2022

T.J. Newman began writing the hijack thriller Falling while she was a flight attendant. She'd jot down ideas on paper napkins in the quiet moments on red-eye flights. Originally broadcast July 2021.

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Users beware: Apps are using a loophole in privacy law to track kids' phones

Thursday, June 16, 2022

Washington Post tech columnist Geoffrey Fowler says a 1998 law prohibits tech companies from collecting data on kids — but only if the companies know the age of their users.

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'River of the Gods' captures the epic quest to find the source of the Nile

Wednesday, June 15, 2022

Writer Candice Millard tells the dramatic story of two 19th-century British explorers who spent years trekking through East Africa, enduring injury and illness in a search for the source of the Nile.

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'1619 Project' journalist lays bare why Black Americans 'live sicker and die quicker'

Tuesday, June 14, 2022

Linda Villarosa says bias in the health care system and the "weathering" affect of living in a racist society are taking a serious toll on African Americans. Her new book is Under the Skin.

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Anchor Katy Tur revisits her high-flying childhood — and the hurt that lingers

Monday, June 13, 2022

Tur's parents ran a helicopter news service in LA in the '80s and '90s. While she loved the rush of flight, her family dynamic was a volatile one. Her memoir is Rough Draft.

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Short-term profits and long-term consequences — did Jack Welch break capitalism?

Wednesday, June 01, 2022

The General Electric CEO wowed investors and mingled with celebrities. But New York Times correspondent David Gelles says Welch's aggressive tactics also caused irreparable harm to American industry.

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Country star Tim McGraw travels back in time to '1883' with wife Faith Hill

Monday, May 30, 2022

The Paramount+ series is the first time McGraw and Hill have appeared together on screen. Before they filmed, they attended "cowboy camp," to learn some basics. Originally broadcast April 19, 2022.

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A divide between the pulpit and the pew is roiling the evangelical church

Thursday, May 19, 2022

New York Times journalist Ruth Graham says many pastors are being pressured to resist vaccines and mask mandates, embrace Trump's claims about election fraud and adopt QANON-based conspiracy theories.

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Biography examines how systemic racism shaped the troubled life of George Floyd

Wednesday, May 18, 2022

Floyd was murdered by a police officer in Minneapolis in 2020. Washington Post reporters Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa reconstruct the course of his life in His Name is George Floyd.

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Has Tucker Carlson created the most racist show in the history of cable news?

Thursday, May 12, 2022

The NY Times did an exhaustive survey of the Fox News host's broadcasts. Reporter Nicholas Confessore says Carlson's show is based on ideas that were once "caged in a dark corner of American life."

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CNN's Zain Asher is grateful for her mom's tough love — even if it meant no TV

Friday, May 06, 2022

Asher's dad died in a car crash in Nigeria when she was 5. Her grief-stricken mother used strict and innovative methods to raise 4 kids. Asher honors her mom in the memoir Where the Children Take Us.

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How behavioral threat assessment can stop mass shootings before they occur

Monday, May 02, 2022

Journalist Mark Follman says that understanding the psychology of shooters and intervening where appropriate can help prevent massacres from happening. His new book is Trigger Points.

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A writer lost his singing voice, then discovered the gymnastics of speech

Friday, April 29, 2022

John Colapinto developed a vocal polyp when he began "wailing" with a rock group without proper warmup. He talks about the frailty and feats of the human voice. Originally broadcast Jan. 26, 2021.

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CNN anchor Zain Asher looks back on the tragedy that helped drive her success

Tuesday, April 26, 2022

Asher's father died in a car crash in Nigeria when she was 5. Afterward, her mom raised four children on her own in a crime-ridden London neighborhood. Asher's memoir is Where the Children Take Us.

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Country star Tim McGraw travels back in time to '1883' with wife Faith Hill

Tuesday, April 19, 2022

The Paramount+ series is the first time McGraw and Hill have appeared together on screen. Before they filmed, they attended "cowboy camp," to learn the basics of riding horses and driving wagons.

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'Pandemic, Inc.' author says financial predators made more than $1 billion off COVID

Tuesday, April 12, 2022

In his new book, ProPublica reporter J. David McSwane says a shocking number of companies that received funds at the beginning of the pandemic to distribute protective gear had no experience doing so.

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