Welcome back to the home of the oxymoron. Evil genius. He asked the newspaper to print his obituary early so he'd enjoy it. That's like hiding at your own funeral. Yeah, it's a big, great gig. I'm Russell Kane. Join me to weigh in on whether the biggest players in history are more evil or genius. Becoming that rich, I'd say that at some level of genius. It also helps that it's a long time ago, right?

It's like the podcast version of telling your kids

the ice cream van plays music when it's out of ice cream.

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In October 1999, on the eve of the millennium,

the celebrated author, Paul Orster,

went on American National Public Radio to launch an appeal for stories.

Talking about this later, Auster said, I told the listeners I was looking for stories.

The stories had to be true, and they had to be short.

But there'd be no restrictions as to subject matter or style. What interested me most

were stories that defied our expectations about the world, anecdotes that revealed the mysterious

and unknowable forces at work in our lives, our family histories. In other words, he added,

true stories that sounded like fiction. The response from the public was

huge, an Auster worked full time for the next year, reading over 4,000 submissions that came in by

letters and email. He selected the best of these stories to broadcast every month on US National

Public Radio. The programmes attracted millions of listeners.

This was the start of the National Story Project. The National Story Project is just one example

of the huge public appetite for both producing and consuming autobiographies, an appetite that's

grown enormously in the last two decades.

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