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:
“Feminism is an entire world view or gestalt, not just a laundry list of women’s issues.”
—Charlotte Bunch (b. 1944)
“Do your children view themselves as successes or failures? Are they being encouraged to be inquisitive or passive? Are they afraid to challenge authority and to question assumptions? Do they feel comfortable adapting to change? Are they easily discouraged if they cannot arrive at a solution to a problem? The answers to those questions will give you a better appraisal of their education than any list of courses, grades, or test scores.”
—Lawrence Kutner (20th century)
“I know that I will always be expected to have extra insight into black texts—especially texts by black women. A working-class Jewish woman from Brooklyn could become an expert on Shakespeare or Baudelaire, my students seemed to believe, if she mastered the language, the texts, and the critical literature. But they would not grant that a middle-class white man could ever be a trusted authority on Toni Morrison.”
—Claire Oberon Garcia, African American scholar and educator. Chronicle of Higher Education, p. B2 (July 27, 1994)
“The man who is aware of himself is henceforward independent; and he is never bored, and life is only too short, and he is steeped through and through with a profound yet temperate happiness. He alone lives, while other people, slaves of ceremony, let life slip past them in a kind of dream.”
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)
“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)