Did you know that the novel "Lolita" would not exist if Vladimir Nabokov’s wife hadn’t stopped her husband from burning the manuscript? Or that Gandhi learned his legendary method of passive resistance from his wife? Or that the person responsible for Maya Angelou’s genre-defining memoir was her good friend James Baldwin? Significant Others is a narrated, nonfiction podcast about folks just beyond the spotlight of history. Each episode tells the story of a talented, difficult and little-known individual who altered the destiny of their better-known partner, child, sibling, or friend, and impacted the world they left behind. Narrated and written by Liza Powel O’Brien and featuring the voices of Megan Mullally, Nick Offerman, Jameela Jamil, Rita Wilson, Timothy Olyphant, Lisa Kudrow and many more.
49 episodes transcribedBiographer Stacy Schiff joins Liza to discuss the lengths she went to in researching her Pulitzer Prize-winning biography, Véra. A full list of Stacy...
Vladimir Nabokov is best known for writing the highly controversial yet critically revered novel, Lolita. But the book might never have made it onto t...
Liza is joined by her significant other, self-proclaimed Lincoln super-fan Conan O’Brien, to discuss how crucial Mary Lincoln was to her husband's pol...
Mary Lincoln is the First Lady everyone loves to hate. But without her, would Abe Lincoln even have been president in the first place? Theirs is a lov...
Playwright Dipika Guha joins Liza to give insight into the complicated relationship between her home country of India and Gandhi's legacy in this time...
Mohandas Gandhi helped India win independence from Britain through nonviolent resistance but little know that he credits the inspiration for his tacti...
World-renowned psychotherapist Esther Perel joins Liza to discuss the dynamic between Leo and Sophia Tolstoy and whether the issues Sophia faced were...
Leo Tolstoy is widely regarded as one of the greatest authors of all time. Yet, without his wife, Sophia Tolstoy, would the world have been gifted wit...
Did you know that the novel "Lolita" would not exist if Vladimir Nabokov’s wife hadn’t stopped her husband from burning the manuscript? Or that Gandhi...
