The name of the pro­gram is Morn­ing Sto­ries (iTunes — Feed — Web Site). The host is Tony Kahn. And the show is all about pre­sent­ing great sto­ries from every­day peo­ple — sto­ries that get at some­thing deeply human, things that oth­er peo­ple can iden­ti­fy with, no mat­ter what their age, back­ground, or nation­al­i­ty. (Hence the rea­son why the show’s pod­cast has unex­pect­ed­ly devel­oped a con­sid­er­able fol­low­ing in Chi­na.)

I fig­ured that there’s no bet­ter way to intro­duce the show than to ask Tony Kahn to high­light some of his own favorite episodes. So that’s what I did, and here’s what he had to say. Once you get beyond lis­ten­ing to his favorites, you can peruse the com­plete archive here. Enjoy.

1. Over Here and Over There (mp3): Morn­ing Sto­ries Pro­duc­er and Direc­tor catch­es up with his friend Fati­ma, by phone from Brazil, and recalls her sto­ry of the hopes that once made her flee her home­land for Amer­i­ca, and the fears that sent her back.

2. How Can You Say No? (mp3): Jack­ie Lantry fights time and City Hall in Chi­na to give her son a fam­i­ly, and Tony Kahn and Gary Mott dis­cuss their per­son­al expe­ri­ences with adop­tion.

3. Fam­i­ly Tree (mp3): Karen Dil­lon begins the pod­cast with a report on work­ing with griev­ing chil­dren. Kat­ri­na Mur­ray ends it with a moth­er’s tale.

4. A Les­son in Chi­nese (mp3): A caller from Xian, Chi­na teach­es Tony the true mean­ing of “hap­pi­ness,” “love,” and “vol­un­teer job.”  Also, Tony and Gary dis­cuss the true mean­ing of “wan­ton.”

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Ne Me Quitte Pas — It’s Jacques Brel’s clas­sic from 1959. It’s a fix­ture in the French cul­tur­al imag­i­na­tion. And it’s been cov­ered left and right, by such singers as Nina Simone (here) and Frank Sina­tra (lis­ten). Now, Jacques, take it away. (PS You can find Brel’s video on our YouTube playlist.)