Ian Frazier

New Yorker staff writer Ian Frazier and Mary Brosnahan, president of Coalition for the Homeless, discuss why New York has more homeless now than it had for decades, what life is like for many of the homeless families in the city, and what the new mayor should do to address the problem. Frazier’s article “Hidden City” appeared in the October 28 issue of The New Yorker.

Writer Ian Frazier made a startling discovery several years ago in eastern Siberia: no one he met there had ever heard of tic tac toe. In this short, Jad and Robert wonder how a game that seems carved into childhood DNA could be completely unknown in some parts of the world.

Ian Frazier talks about Siberia, the vast, storied expanse of Asiatic Russia that takes up one-seventh of the land on earth. In Travels in Siberia, he writes about the geography, the resources, the native peoples, the history, the climate, and the bugs. The book is a historical travelogue, an account of Russia since the end of the Soviet Union, and a personal reflection.

For generations, Sibera has served as a metaphor for exile, whether social, political, romantic, or geographic. Consider political thinkers like Lenin, who were forced to serve time — often years — in Siberia, or romantic heroes like Dr. Zhivago, cruelly separated from those they love and sent to the region's icy tundra. Even people who commit crimes of etiquette in their social circles inadvertently exile themselves to social Siberia.

But is this place of exile really so much like a prison? Ian Frazier doesn’t think so. 

Event: Ian Frazier will be in conversation with Leonard Lopate
Tuesday, June 10 at 8:15 pm
92nd Street Y
Lexington Avenue at 92nd Street
To purchase tickets, go here.

Kurt Andersen and writer Ian Frazier cast a few lines and explore the art and culture of fish.

Ian Frazier taught himself to fish at the age of 4, and his essays on the subject were collected in last year's The Fish's Eye. A longtime contributor to The New Yorker ...