Ian Frazier

Frazier is the author of "Family," a book which traces his ancestors back to the 1600s. His inspiration for the book came from old letters he found after the death of his parents in 1987 and 1988. Frazier is also the author of "Dating Your Mom," "Nobody Better, Better Than Nobody," and "Great Plains." He is a regular contributor to the "New Yorker." (Rebroadcast)

Frazier is the author of "Family," a book which traces his ancestors back to the 1600s. His inspiration for the book came from old letters he found after the death of his parents in 1987 and 1988. Their death gave him the desire to find "a meaning that would defeat death" in the letters. Frazier is also the author of "Dating Your Mom," "Nobody Better, Better Than Nobody," and "Great Plains." He is a regular contributor to the "New Yorker."

Writer Ian Frazier. He's known primarily as a writer of humor pieces for The New Yorker magazine. Some of those earlier short humor pieces and essays were collected in two earlier books, Dating Your Mom and Nobody Better, Better than Nobody. His new book, Great Plains, is quite different. It describes a history of the great plains through Frazier's own trips driving 25,000 miles in a criss-cross of the area, and hours spent in the New York's Public Library reading about the great plains.