All Things Considered

In writer Michael Ondaatje's mind, the "cat's table" is where the undesirables sit in a boat's dining room. It's for the hecklers, the lowly ones and the ones farthest away from power. And it's also where you'll find the narrator of Ondaatje's new novel, Michael, an 11-year-old who's on a 21-day voyage from Sri Lanka to London all on his own.

He and his companions — two other boys who are travelling alone — live by only one rule: to every day do at least one thing that is forbidden.

Ben Dolnick is a writer based in Brooklyn.

Lately my neighborhood has been colonized by a species that exists only for a few weeks each fall: excited students. They're brimming with gossip about each other and opinions about subjects they hadn't heard of two months ago. They seem thrilled, even at 8 in the morning.

When I was their age, I loathed school, even in September. It was dull, and worse — it was forced upon me. I longed for escape like a prisoner crossing off days on his cell wall.

Pop art master Claes Oldenburg will officially unveil his latest sculpture outside the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts on Saturday. Oldenburg is known for taking everyday objects and blowing them up to impossible sizes. At first, his giant clothespins and spoons made him a target for ridicule. But now you can find examples of Oldenburg's work all over the world, from Cologne to Cleveland. And they've been embraced — for the most part.

Michele Norris and Melissa Block remember former All Things Considered commentator Jo Carson who died earlier this month in the place where she was born — John City, Tenn. She was 64. She was a playwright, fiction author, and children's' book author.

The deadline to register to vote in November’s election is this coming Monday. It will be an all-mail ballot election for most of Colorado's 64 counties.