Terry Gross

R. Eric Thomas Thomas' new book, Congratulations, the Best Is Over!, is about middle age, and what it feels like to go back to the place where you were born — especially when your relationship with that place is complicated.

Oppenheimer writer and director Christopher Nolan is no stranger to dark, brooding films. His list of credits includes the Batman trilogy, Dunkirk, Inception and Insomnia. But he says the story of Robert Oppenheimer, known as the father of the atomic bomb, stayed with him in a way his other films didn't.

The U.S. used atomic weapons against Japan 78 years ago. We listen back to archival interviews with psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton and journalists Lesley M.M. Blume and Evan Thomas about the decision.