In 2006, there were seventeen This American Life episodes.
- Episode 306 – "Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time"
- Act 1: Luck of the Irish – Ira Glass
- Act 2: Taxation Without Inebriation
- Act 3: Bad Morning America – Davy Rothbart
- Act 4: Function of the Heart
- Episode 307 – "In the Shadow of the City"
- Act 1: Brooklyn Archipelago – Brett Martin
- Act 2: The Thin Gray Line – Cheryl Wagner
- Act 3: Yes, In My Backyard – Jorge Just
- Episode 308 – "Star-Crossed Love"
- Act 1: Prisoner of Love – Shant Kenderian
- Act 2: The Diary of Mrs. Sam Horrigan – Catalina Puente
- Act 3: So a Squirrel and a Chipmunk Walk Into a Bar – David Sedaris
- Episode 309 – "Cat and Mouse"
- Act 1: El Gato Y El Ratoncito – James Spring
- Act 2: Hello Kitty – David Sedaris
- Act 3: Looking for Loveseats in all the Wrong Places – David Segal
- Act 4: Spray My Name, Spray My Name – Brian Thomas Gallagher
- Episode 310 – "Habeas Schmaebeas"
- Act 1: There's No U.S. in Habeas – Jack Hitt
- Act 2: September 11, 1660 – Jon Ronson
- Act 3: We Interrogate the Detainees – Jack Hitt
- Episode 311 – "A Better Mousetrap"
- Act 1: Mother of Invention – Karen Sosnoski
- Act 2: Everything Must Go – Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh
- Act 3: What Would Fill-in-the-Blank Do? – Brett Martin
- Act 4: Squashing the Creative Spirit – Andy Raskin
- Episode 312 – "How We Talked Back Then"
- Show description: A return to two live shows from the TAL archive including show 36, "Letters" and show 66, "Tales from the Net".
- Act 1: Letters
- Act 2: Internet
- Episode 313 – "Parental Guidance Suggested"
- Act 1: Two Possibilities, Both Bad – Ira Glass
- Act 2: The Grandma Letters – Will Seymour, Mortified
- Act 3: My Angel's in the Centerfolds – Thea Chaloner
- Episode 314 – "It's Never Over"
- Act 1: Who Takes the Class Out of Class Reunion – Jon Ronson
- Act 2: Life Without Leanne – Larry Doyle
- Act 3: Deal of a Lifetime – Sarah Koenig (rebroadcast from episode 162)
- Act 4: One Word: Timing – Tami Sagher
- Episode 315 – "The Parrot and the Potbellied Pig"
- Act 1: Parrot – Ira Glass, Alex Lane, and Erik Holm
- Act 2: Pig – Jonathan Goldstein
- Act 3: Combo Platter – David Sedaris
- Episode 316 – "The Cat Came Back"
- Episode 317 – "Unconditional Love"
- Act 1: Love Is A Battlefield – Alix Spiegel
- Act 2: Hit Me With Your Best Shot – Dave Royko
- Episode 318 – "With Great Power"
- Act 1: Objects in Side View Mirror Are Truer Than They Appear – Alex Kotlowitz
- Act 2: Unwelcome Wagon – Ira Glass
- Music interlude: Dave Barker, I Got to Get Away
- Act 3: Waiting for Joe – Shalom Auslander
- Music interlude: Bettye Lavette, The High Road
- Episode 319 – "And the Call Was Coming From the Basement"
- Show description: Scary stories that are all true.
- Prologue: Ira Glass and Albert Donnay read a ghost story from a 1921 medical journal.
- Act 1: The Hills Have Eyes – Alix Blumberg
- Music interlude: 45 Grave, Evil
- Act 2: The Hitcher – Ira Glass
- Act 3: And the Call Was Coming from ... the Listeners!
- Act 4: Graveyard Shift – David Sedaris
- Music interlude: Gnarls Barkley, The Boogie Monster
- Episode 320 – "What's In a Number – 2006 Edition"
- Show description: Discussion about a new study by The Lancet about the number of Iraqis who have died since the US invasion.
- Prologue: Ira Glass talks with ordinary Iraqis about life after the invasion.
- Act 1: Truth, Damn Truth and Statistics – Alex Blumberg
- Act 2: Not Just a Number
- Act 3: The War This Time – Ira Glass
- Music interlude: The Roots, Somebody's Gotta Do It
- Episode 321 – "Sink or Swim"
- Prologue: a story about a German interpreter for Ford whose skills fail him
- Act 1: Mr. Central High
- Act 2: I'm Not a Doctor, but I Play One at the Holiday Inn
- Act 3: If This Ark Is A-Rockin', Don't Come A-Knockin' – Jonathan Goldstein interprets the story of Noah's Ark
- Episode 322 – "Shouting Across the Divide"
- Show description: Stories of Muslim and non-Muslim relations.
- Prologue: A depiction of the Prophet Mohammed on display in the main courtroom of the U.S. Supreme Court.
- Act 1: Which One of These Is Not Like the Others? -- Why is it so hard for Muslims and non-Muslims to get along in the fourth grade?
- Act 2: America the Ad Campaign – Shalom Auslander
Famous quotes containing the words list of, list, american, life and/or episodes:
“Thirty—the promise of a decade of loneliness, a thinning list of single men to know, a thinning brief-case of enthusiasm, thinning hair.”
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)
“All is possible,
Who so list believe;
Trust therefore first, and after preve,
As men wed ladies by license and leave,
All is possible.”
—Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503?–1542)
“It seems that American patriotism measures itself against an outcast group. The right Americans are the right Americans because they’re not like the wrong Americans, who are not really Americans.”
—Eric J. Hobsbawm (b. 1917)
“At last a vision has been vouchsafed to us of our life as a whole. We see the bad with the good.... With this vision we approach new affairs. Our duty is to cleanse, to reconsider, to restore, to correct the evil without impairing the good, to purify and humanize every process of our common life, without weakening or sentimentalizing it.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)
“Twenty or thirty years ago, in the army, we had a lot of obscure adventures, and years later we tell them at parties, and suddenly we realize that those two very difficult years of our lives have become lumped together into a few episodes that have lodged in our memory in a standardized form, and are always told in a standardized way, in the same words. But in fact that lump of memories has nothing whatsoever to do with our experience of those two years in the army and what it has made of us.”
—Václav Havel (b. 1936)