Terry Gross

Matt Bai says that while voters have always cared about candidates' characters, some news used to be off limits. His new book looks at Gary Hart's 1987 affair that destroyed his political ambitions.

Dunham says when she started writing HBO's Girls, she was drawn to characters with "a bit of a Zelda Fitzgerald lost, broken woman quality." Her new essay collection is called Not That Kind of Girl.

The New Yorker's Dexter Filkins discusses reporting from Erbil, the capital of Iraq's Kurdistan region, a town with a Jaguar dealership and sushi restaurants. Just 30 miles away is the Islamic State.