This American Life
Stories of Hope and Fear

You could put a ribbon on a new pair of socks, tie a bow around a bottle of wine, or even order a subscription to the fruit-of-the-month club.

Or you could go the other route this holiday season, and get someone you love hooked on This American Life.

For the uninitiated, TAL is a radio program that starts each week with a theme. The theme is then expanded and examined through fiction, non-fiction, interviews and music. At the end of each episode, it's as if you've stepped out of a darkened theater after a fantastic film, or turned the last page of your favorite novel.

Thoughts are provoked. Emotions are stirred. Catharsis is achieved. All of this in under an hour.

This American Life: Stories of Hope & Fear takes the best from that weekly experience and packs it into a two-disk CD of favorites.

Summations cannot do justice to stories so layered with truth, humor and nostalgia, yet here are a few attempts: In "Miami Vices," Sascha Rothchild reads excerpts from her teenage diary, confirming a parent's worst nightmares as she gleefully describes her descent into sex, drugs and popularity. Griffin Hansbury, born female, shares the details of becoming a man, specifically the way massive doses of testosterone change his outlook on life. In "The Babysitters," a pair of siblings divulge the greatest secret of their childhoods — the imaginary family they created in order to escape their overbearing mother.

There are stories from John Hodgman (of Daily Show and Apple/PC ad fame), stories from David Sedaris (writer of Naked and The Santaland Diaries). Stories about squirrels and chipmunks, karaoke and comedy, roller coasters and death.

The CD artwork beautiful. The 2-disk theme of Hope and Fear is inspired. The only complaint a regular listener to the show might have is that, in picking the best of the best, the normal pace of the show is thrown off a bit. While normally each piece is smoothly sewn together with music and host Ira Glass' commentary, the transfers from piece to piece in this CD are a bit rough. To put it another way, instead getting a perfectly tailored three piece suit, you get a closet full of your favorite accessories.

This CD will inspire. It will make you think about life. It will make you think about death. It will make you think about sex. It will make you call your mother. Hopefully it will not make you think and do things in that order. If you don't give it this year, hopefully someone loves you enough to get it for you.

— Colin Alexander (colin_alexander at hotmail dot com)