The Shop Around the Corner

We can’t make this show without you, our listeners. Today, you can help support Decoder Ring – and get a really good deal. To join Slate Plus for just $59/year, visit slate.com/decoderplus on December 31st and type in the promo code DECODER50 at checkout. Slate Plus members get t ...  عرض المزيد

Decoder Ring listeners write in with some excellent mysteries, and for our last episode of the year we’re solving three of them. Why do children play in boxes full of sand? Why do rock bands pretend like the show is over when everybody knows they’re coming back for an encore? And ...  عرض المزيد

Skidmore, Missouri is a very small town. In the '70s, there was only one bar, one grocery store, and one bully. Ken McElroy was so ruthless and intimidating that even police officers looked the other way. He terrorized the town for decades, until they finally fought back. We spok ...  عرض المزيد

On October 27, 1988, McLean County Coroner William Anderson had just come from the Central Catholic vs. University High School football game. Afterward, he was due to meet with members of his re-election campaign to go over strategies. Before the meeting, Anderson was volunteered ...  عرض المزيد

On this episode of Our American Stories, Jonathan Mattox of the Oxford-Ole Miss Rotary Club shares how The Christmas store originated and the impact it has had on the lives of thousands of children; Mike Leven was President and Chief Operating Officer of Las Vegas Sands Corp. One ...  عرض المزيد

We are joined by the writer Andrew Hankinson to discuss Walter Greenwood’s classic novel of Northern working-class life. First published in 1933, Love on the Dole, revolves explores the fortunes of the Hardcastle family, who live in industrial Salford in the 1930s, just as the De ...  عرض المزيد