Events

 “According to the public-opinion polls, agnostics and atheists are the group Americans trust least — even though nonbelievers conduct themselves more ethically than do the religious faithful. It helps in reducing such ignorance and fear for nonbelievers to come out of the closet and profess not only their opinions but the emotional and intellectual struggles behind them, as the always engaging Michael Krasny does in this probing examination of his spirituality and ours.” — Timothy Ferris, author of Coming of Age in the Milky Way   Unlike recent authors who emphatically say No! or Yes! to God, Michael Krasny joins the millions who know they don't know. As a radio host, college professor, and literary scholar, he has spent decades leading conversations on every imaginable topic. He has discussed life's most important questions with the foremost thinkers in virtually every discipline. And yet answers to some questions — the big, three-o'clock-in-the-morning questions — elude him. Despite this, Krasny does not discount belief systems or ridicule faith. Instead, he seeks. He explores morality, eternal life, why we do good, and why evil sometimes triumphs, and his quest is informed by artists, scientists, world events, and even films. Personal and universal, timely and timeless, Spiritual Envy is a deeply wise yet warmly welcoming conversation, an invitation to ask one's own questions — no matter how inconclusive the answers.   Michael Krasny, PhD, hosts the nation's most listened to locally produced public radio talk show, Forum with Michael Krasny. Forum is heard weekdays on KQED-FM in San Francisco, an affiliate of National Public Radio, as well as on Sirius-XM Satellite Radio. An award-winning broadcaster who has interviewed many of the great cultural icons of our era, he is the author of Off Mike: A Memoir of Talk Radio and Literary Life (Stanford University Press) and coauthor of Sound Ideas (McGraw-Hill). Krasny is also an English professor at San Francisco State University.   “Michael Krasny is both the conscience and alpha brain of the Bay Area, and certainly one of the most thoughtful interviewers alive. That he’s also fantastically open-minded and spiritually searching only increases his appeal and importance. It’s hard to imagine radio, and the life of the mind, for that matter, without him.” — Dave Eggers, author of Zeitoun and What Is the What