One of the great pleasures of working on Wonder Cabinet is dreaming up a list of guests we might interview. Anne and I are curators at heart and we both read widely, so we’re always comparing notes about our favorite new discoveries, adding to a growing wish list of people we’d love to talk with. From the beginning, we imagined this podcast as a modern counterpart to the old "cabinets of curiosities" — except instead of collecting narwhal tusks, nautilus shells and other natural wonders, we’re assembling a treasure trove of ideas. And what an exciting time to be doing it. There’s a revolution in thinking underway — a new paradigm emerging that challenges older mechanistic models in science and looks for more relational ways of understanding the world. For me, it’s exciting to watch an intellectual space opening up that’s less rigid and more receptive to enchantment — even a bit of magic.

Creating this podcast has been an invigorating creative process. It’s also challenging. Not everyone we might want to interview fits in Wonder Cabinet. But the concept of wonder has also turned out to be a surprisingly rich and varied subject. You’ll hear plenty about remarkable discoveries — whether it’s the new science of plant intelligence or the latest findings about black holes — but there’s also a politics of wonder. That’s why Anne interviewed the writer and activist Rebecca Solnit for our next episode. They talk about current politics within the context of the broader, uplifting sweep of history — and about the importance of finding beauty in difficult times.

We hope you’ll be intrigued and surprised by our lineup of guests. Which brings me to George Saunders, the celebrated novelist and short story writer. For years I’ve been fascinated by the wildly imaginative worlds he creates, and I interviewed him a few times on To The Best Of Our Knowledge about his earlier books (and his recommended reading). But I wasn’t sure his new book, "Vigil," fit the Wonder Cabinet lens. This is a novel about ghosts who visit a villainous man on his deathbed, and the big question is whether he should repent for his sins before he dies. But as I was reading the book, I realized there’s so much rich material we could explore if I approached the interview through the prism of curiosity and mystery — and wonder.

Saunders was just in Madison for a big event at the Wisconsin Book Festival, and we had a great conversation before he went on stage. We talked about his metaphysical world of ghosts and angels, compared notes on our own strange experiences of "visitations" from dead friends and relatives, discussed the moral questions of the great Russian writers and probed the wonder of imaginative world-building. We’ll feature this interview in next week’s episode.

I hope you’ll get a chance to listen! 

— Steve