From the #1 New York Times bestselling author Anna Quindlen comes a story about DNA and our passion for biological truths. In the novel More Than Enough, a woman confronts the surprising results of an ancestry test, a challenge conversationalist Bill Griffeth knows first-hand. 

In this conversation, pairing fiction and fact, we go deep into a novel that should be read by anyone using DNA testing in pursuit of their family’s history. When high school English teacher Polly Goodman is given an ancestry test kit as a joke, she tests without thinking too much about it. When Polly learns the results match her with a stranger, she is certain there’s been a mistake. Yet she cannot help but comb through her family history for answers.

With her trademark warmth, humor, and insight into the power of love and hope, author Anna Quindlen explores how we find ourselves again and again through the relationships that define us. This is an illuminating conversation with author and TV anchor Bill Griffeth, whose own DNA journey mirrors Polly’s. During an extended audience Q+A session, Ms. Quindlen and Mr. Griffeth are joined by science journalist Libby Copeland, who shares insights on this growing area of exploration: the latest statistics, trends, and findings on DNA testing which are greatly impacting individuals and families.

The award-winning author Claire Messud joins Mark Haddon for a discussion of Leaving Home and memoir writing.

Leaving Home is a portrait of the artist both as a child and as an adult. Mark Haddon, author of the celebrated book The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, has once again portrayed what it is like to be different and see the world differently—this time, in a work of nonfiction, a full color memoir. Honest and scalpel sharp, his book is about family and much more, including heart surgery, papier mâché, mental breakdown and great white sharks. It’s also about the power of art, in all its varied forms, and coming to terms with the mess of human life. Richly illustrated with images from the author’s childhood, Leaving Home is about escaping a place that never felt like home. Don’t miss hearing from this best-loved British author and his conversation with the award-winning author Claire Messud about this very personal, family-oriented form of writing, documentation, and sharing.

"Land" is a novel about separation and reunion, tragedy and recovery, colonization and rebellion. It is a story of buried treasure, overlapping lives, ancient woodland, persistent ghosts, a particularly loyal dog, and how, when it comes to both land and history, nothing ever goes away.

When’s the last time you checked your paystub?


Most Americans don’t anymore. It can be hard to find them on HR websites. But Americans really should be checking their paystubs. Each of those deductions is a monument to fierce battles over what life should be like, on and off the job. They are also a reminder, every few weeks, that so much of what it has meant to be a citizen has been tied to the work that Americans have done.



Elizabeth Tandy Shermer, a professor of history at the University of Georgia, speaks at the Charles River Museum on the history behind the deductions on our paystubs and their connections to American democracy and capitalism.

Old North Church welcomed public historian Tad Stoermer to mark the release of his new book, "A Resistance History of the United States."

The Charlestown Historical Society hosts a discussion on the legacy of the Battle of Bunker Hill led by GBH News Features Editor Jennifer Moore. She sits down with author Donald Ryan, VP of Charlestown Historical Society, Dr. Timothy Riordan, and President of Charlestown Historical Society, Julie Hall, who share their insights into the recent excavations around Bunker Hill and lesser-known stories from the monumental day 251 years ago.

Descendants of those who fought the Battle of Bunker Hill also share family histories based on artifacts, journals, weapons and more from their family archives.

Massachusetts soil holds two stories. One is celebrated every July 4th. The other, older, bloodier, and deliberately buried, is the one we need to understand first.

One hundred years before the American Revolution, King Philip’s War engulfed the Indigenous nations of southern New England, Wampanoag, Nipmuc, Narragansett and others, in one of the deadliest conflicts in North American history relative to population. When it ended, the colonial winners didn’t just claim the land, they also claimed the story. A narrative of inevitable destiny, of brave but doomed resistance, of a continent naturally passing from one civilization to the next. A story designed to be mourned, not questioned.

But what happens when you question it? In Wampanoag country, the war’s end was total: leaders killed, survivors enslaved. Or was it? What did colonists find when they arrived, and what did they dismantle? What was lost that we still don’t fully understand? The Indian wars didn’t end in New England; they migrated westward with the expanding nation. Was the logic of dispossession already present in the Pilgrims’ earliest encounters with the First Nations? Does Mary Rowlandson’s celebrated captivity narrative tell us as much about the making of American racial and gender identity as it does about war?

Hosted by journalist Phillip Martin, this conversation features Indigenous panelists from local tribal communities and asks what it means that we still carry this story, and what it costs us that we’ve never fully told the other one.

Some institutions are home to centers that study and aim to improve democracy. Among other functions, they involve students in their research, and they may study civic education.

On this panel, to discuss their institutions, civic involvement, and research, are:

Jessica Kimpell Johnson, Director of Research, Karsh Institute of Democracy; Manager of the John L. Nau III Lab on the History & Principles of Democracy, University of Virginia

Amy Binder, SNF-Agora Professor of Sociology, Johns Hopkins University

Mindy Romero, Founder and Director of the Center for Inclusive Democracy (CID), University of Southern California’s Sol Price School of Public Policy in Sacramento

Jennifer Brick Murtazashvili, Founding Director of the Center for Governance and Markets; Professor, University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public and International Affairs

Moderator: Leela Strong, Newhouse Director of the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE), Tisch College at Tufts University

Photo by Laurie Swope for Tufts University, Apr 10, 2026.

This panel is part of the Civics in Higher Education National Summit that took place on the Tufts University campus on April 10, 2026.

U.S. foreign policy is undergoing a period of recalibration, prompting renewed debate over how to balance domestic priorities with international engagement. As Washington redefines its global role, what are the implications for the future of transatlantic relations? How might shifting approaches to security, trade, and multilateral cooperation reshape ties between the United States and Europe—and where do opportunities for renewed alignment lie?

This program brings together Ambassador (ret.) Mark Libby, WorldBoston Ambassador-in-Residence, and Ruth Bajada, Deputy Chief of Mission of the European Union to the United States, for a timely and nuanced discussion. Bajada currently serves in Washington in a leading EU diplomatic role, while Libby previously held the parallel position as Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Mission to the EU. This shared perspective—shaped from opposite sides of the same relationship—offers a rare combination of credibility, candor, and personal rapport as they explore how both sides of the Atlantic can navigate emerging challenges while sustaining one of the world’s most consequential partnerships.

Eboo Patel delivered a brief lecture at the midpoint of the Civics in Higher Education National Summit, considering the rise of civic thought centers on college campuses and how they should aspire to the ideal of America as "a diversity project."