The Brian Lehrer Show observes the Memorial Day holiday with a selection of favorite interviews:

• Eric Klinenberg, professor in the social sciences and director of the Institute for Public Knowledge at New York University and the author of 2020: One City, Seven People, and the Year Everything Changed (Knopf, 2024), tells the story of New York in 2020 through the lens of seven New Yorkers, and talks about the ongoing effect of that traumatic year.
• George Takei, actor, activist and writer, discusses his debut picture book, My Lost Freedom: A Japanese American World War II Story (Crown Books for Young Readers, 2024).
• Jon Meacham, Pulitzer Prize-winning presidential historian and the author of And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle (Random House, 2022), talks about the real lessons to learn from the life and work of Abraham Lincoln.
• Jay Caspian Kang, staff writer for The New Yorker, documentary film director, and the author of The Loneliest Americans (Crown, 2021), shares his thoughts on what he calls the "ideology of the internet," and the tangible effects it has on culture, democracy, institutions and our day-to-day lives.
• While Hart Island has a reputation for being the burial grounds of New York's unwanted, those laid to rest on the island each have stories and loved ones. Joe Richman, founder and executive producer of Radio Diaries, discusses the Radio Diaries series "The Unmarked Graveyard: Stories from Hart Island" and Susan Hurlburt, shares stories of her son Neil Harris Jr., also known as Steven, who was buried on the island.

These interviews were lightly edited for time and clarity and the original web versions are available here:

How 2020 Changed Us (Feb 16, 2024)

George Takei on 'My Lost Freedom' (Apr 16, 2024)

What We Should Learn from Lincoln (Oct 19, 2022)

Jay Caspian Kang on 'The Ideology of the Internet' (Mar 15, 2024)

Stories from Hart Island (Nov 8, 2023)