Well, maybe not you, but Daniel Smith’s father. He heard voices. Nothing quite so dramatic as say, Joan of Arc, just simple things. “Move that cup,” for instance. Smith says he led a normal life as an attorney, but for many years felt deeply ashamed by these voices, so much so that he never told anyone outside the family about them.

It was his father that led Smith to write Muses, Madmen, and Prophets: Rethinking the History, Science and Meaning of Auditory Hallucination. The author sat down with Stephen Colbert, during which time he said “over the past 100 years, hearing voices has been traditionally associated with mental illness…a symptom of schizophrenia.” But it hasn’t always been like that. “Hearing voices certainly has not always been easy, but also not always thought of in terms of mental illness…[but instead] in terms of poetry, or religion.” Smith noted some famous figures throughout history that have heard voices, the most famous being Moses and his burning bush, and the most amusing being Socrates, who heard a voice warning him that the street he was traveling on was full of muddy pigs, and that he should seek out a different route.

Watch the full interview, in which Smith points out two-thirds of Americans admit to hearing voices. Colbert counters with the fact that his fans hear his voice even when the TV is off.

Nope, no Radiohead here, but we do have Tal Ben-Shahar, and he’s just about as popular…at Harvard, anyway. Ben-Shahar is a professor of positive psychology — a field he pioneered that bridges the gap between psychology and self-help — and teaches an intro class to 1,400 students per semester, or about one-fifth of the student body. Impressive, no?

For the rest of us, Ben-Shahar has recently published his lectures in the form of Happier, a book that promises to make you love the life you live. Or something. He sat down with with Diane Rehm last week and explained just how exactly he teaches happiness: “Look at happiness as both a combination of meaning and pleasure,” the good doctor says. “Many people ask me, ’so, are you happy?’ and it’s very difficult to answer because it’s a continuum. I’m certainly happier now than I am 5 years ago, I know that.” When asked why students take his class, he answered, “They truly want to be happier. They’re doing well academically, socially, but they aren’t happier…everything that society tells us is necessary to be happy, they’re doing.” Uh huh.

For more on exactly what positive psychology entails, and the history of the class at Harvard, listen to the full interview.

Gone are the days when you could stuff your savings in a mattress, and how we do miss them.

The latest in a seemingly endless parade of themed finance books is Sharon Epperson’s The Big Payoff. Epperson, a correspondent for CNBC, has put together a collection of sensible advice for newlyweds to avoid debt and manage their money from the wedding day onward. She sat down with NPR’s Michele Norris and rued the fact that not only do most couples grossly overspend on the wedding, but they don’t give themselves what Epperson calls “a financial checkup” before the Big Day to see if, given current financial situations, they can comfortably manage the first few years of marriage.

Her best advice for all the enamored debtors out there? “Live on one income, not two.” Regardless of whether both work, or one stays home, “plan to live on less than you earn.” That tactic, however dull, will inherently account for the unforeseen expenses that will inevitably occur.

Listen to the full interview and read an excerpt here.

Yesterday, Good Morning America welcomed perhaps its most entertaining guest in recent memory: little Elmo! Indeed, the cookbook craze has finally wormed its way onto Sesame Street, and the result is this: C is for Cooking: Recipes from the Street, a batch of healthy, kid-friendly meals from the stars of the longest running kids show in creation. Elmo himself showed up, and with help from some GMA guy, made Elmo’s Baby Turkey Burgers.

It’s not too late to salvage your relationship with the kid! Watch the interview and check out the sample recipes, including one for something called Abby Cadabby’s Magic Golden Zucchini Coins, which I must admit I’m skeptical of.

Then again, I didn’t know Sesame Street was even still on the air…

What do you mean, you’re not green? Being green is the new anti-drug! Do you hate the environment? You’re lucky Al Gore doesn’t kick you in the shins!

Even though scientists say we have roughly a decade to effectively deal with global warming, it’s still not too late to check out Elizabeth Rogers’ and Thomas Kostigen’s newest, The Green Book. The authors stopped by The Today Show to demonstrate a few of the dozens of simple things American’s can do to cut down on its massively disproportionate energy consumption.

For instance, cook your food with a microwave, which is roughly four times more efficient than a traditional electric oven. If every American used a microwave for every meal, the authors point out that we would save as much energy as the entire continent of Africa consumes in one year.

For more greenish tips, including ones from Cameron Diaz and Will Ferrell (!), watch the interview and read the excerpt.

Rosco’s was a dark bar, smoky, lots of taxidermy on the walls, and the first place where Danielle Trussoni heard her father, Jim Trussoni’s war stories. Jim was a Vietnam vet, drafted from Wisconsin at the outset of the war, and immediately volunteered to be a “tunnel rat,” and plumb the labyrinthine and oftentimes booby-trapped Viet Cong tunnel systems. Jim now suffers from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and Danielle attributes it primarily to his time underground. This past year, Danielle went so far as to write a memoir, entitled Falling Through the Earth, which describes what it was like growing up beneath this man and how his PTSD effected her life as well.

Danielle sat down with NPR’s Weekend Edition to discuss the book. She begins as a 5 year old who just recently found dozens of photographs of Asian men in her basement, which she would later discover were of Viet Cong Jim had killed. “He really cherished them,” she says. This was her first encounter with her father’s PTSD, though they did not speak about the photos until 14 years later, when Danielle was doing a project for a history class at U. of Wisconsin. She interviewed Jim about his experience, and quickly realized that the stories she’d heard as a child had changed, sometimes for the better, other times not. “They were fraught, very emotional,” she says of the interviews. “Jim never felt remorse in the way I wanted him to feel remorse for those deaths, and I guess a solider can’t.”

In researching the memoir, Danielle actually went to Vietnam and retraced her father’s foot steps, even plunging down into preserved Viet Cong cave systems in hopes of understanding better Jim’s mindset. “It did [help me to understand. I could feel the heat, and I could feel the claustrophobia, and I could see nothing ahead but…nothingness”.

Listen to the full interview, in which Danielle further discusses her time in Vietnam, and the difficulties with the actual writing of the memoir.

The war in Iraq is the first in our nation’s history in which a majority of the tasks traditionally undertaken by the army have been outsourced, primarily by former Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, to KGB, a subsidiary of Halliburton. When KGB was first contracted to do logistical work, the sum agreed on was $6 million. Over the past four years, that amount has ballooned to $26 billion. What are the repercussions of such a thorough privatization of the war? That is the question asked by Dina Rasor in her book, Betraying Our Troops: The Destructive Results of Privatizing War.

Rasor sat down with Diane Rehm, and discussed the fact that in Iraq right now, there are more than 100 private contractors and that cost will be more than $1 billion this year. “People gripe about the cost of Iraqi reconstruction,” says Rasor, “that’s nothing compared to the cost of outsourcing everything.” She points out that there is nearly a 1:1 ratio now of soldiers and private contractors, with each topping out at around 130,000. What does that mean on the ground? “Commanders have less control. They’re going into hostile areas now, and there are no regulations for that.” Perhaps more alarming though, is the fact that these contractors are responsible for the infamous gear shortages. “Logistically, they’ll supply to the main bases, but they won’t go any farther than that. It’s too dangerous for them to justify it, so soldiers get left without food, water and gear.”

Uhhh…

Listen to the full interview.

Esquire, perhaps the only periodical to have John McCain and Jessica Beil on its cover in the same year, has hit the big time: in a press release, the magazine announced it would be featuring The Gingerbread Girl, a 21,000-word novella by the guitar player from the Rock Bottom Remainders, Stephen King!

Editor-in-Chief David Granger spoke with the Associated Press last week: “Over the last year, we’ve been trying to breathe life back into magazine fiction. The best way to do that is to publish nothing other than event fiction—stories that have something in addition to their literary merit to call attention to themselves.”

King’s story, which appears in the July issue, is the latest in a rich tradition of Esquire fiction. Truman Copote’s “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” was first published there, as was Norman Mailer’s “An American Dream.” Not bad company to keep.

Book critic Maureen Corrigan showed up on Fresh Air from WHYY yesterday to discuss three books she believes should be staples of your summer. Yes, you.

The first, Hilma Wolitzer’s Summer Reading, Corrigan thought at first glance was “a bald appeal to book clubs across the land.” The story centers around a secluded woman whose only job is to lead book club discussions, specifically for a group of Hamptons women, the Page Turners, who convene every so often and gossip about novels of their choosing. Wolitzer uses them as a vehicle to examine how reading can, says Corrigan, “both enlarge and warp the world views of susceptible readers,” and makes examples of three women from markedly different social standing. Notable also is the clever incorporation of plot elements from novels the Page Turners read into the primary plot.

Andrew O’Hagen comes in second with Be Near Me, set in a rainy Scottish town on the Irish Sea. Father David, the town’s priest — “a lonely aesthete,” says Corrigan — takes up company with two rebellious teenagers, whose casual interest in debauchery and illicit behavior, awakens memories of a more madcap life spent at Oxford in the 60s. A reverse coming-of-age? Fascinating!

The anchor of Corrigan’s list, as well as everyone else’s, is Ian McEwan’s On Chesil Beach, which follows two virginal newlyweds to their honeymoon, during which time they become paralyzed in equal parts by performance anxiety and the repulsive mechanics of the consummate act. The great irony, as Corrigan points out, is that the groom, Edward, is a student of “the great man theory of history,” but neither he nor his new wife can transcend the constraints of their own personal histories, crippling the marriage from the outset.

Read or listen to the article here. NPR has also made an excerpt of McEwan’s novella available, which you may view here.

In the latest of a series of books with hyper-literal titles, historian and journalist Dan Kurzman brings us Special Mission: Hitler’s Secret Plot to Seize the Vatican and Kidnap Pope Pius the XII, a fascinating look at one of the increasingly infirm dictator’s late-stage plots.

Fearing that Pius XII would speak out against the Nazi’s actions against the Jews, he ordered the SS leader in Italy, Gen. Karl Wolff, to carry out the deed. Kurzman, then writing for The Washington Post, was the first to interview Wolff after the war. Describing him as a successful opportunist, Kurzman explains Nazi/Vatican relations from the 1933 Concordat, the ultimate reason for Pius XII’s silence throughout the war to that point.

Kurzman was interviewed by NPR’s All Things Considered today, during which time he described Wolff’s daring betrayal of the Fürer and his hopes that the pope might be an instrument in negotiating peace and a subsequent Anglo-American-German offensive against the unruly Soviets.

Read an excerpt and listen to the full interview here.