As Covid-19 emerged and lockdowns began in March 2020, a global slowdown unfolded with an immediacy few could have predicted. In the midst of lockdowns, Andrew Zuckerman and Spencer Bailey felt the urge to record what leading minds were thinking and feeling in real time.

Organized as a book of 100 of these interviews, At a Distance provides a curated selection of the wisdom shared by the resulting podcast’s guests. Environmentalist and journalist Bill McKibben, psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk, MoMA curator Paola Antonelli, food artist Laila Gohar, biologist Merlin Sheldrake, Buddhist monk Gelong Thubten, novelist Hari Kunzru, philosopher Kate Soper, and landscape architect Walter Hood offer a grounding sense of context and clarity, looking at the world from angles across public health, the climate crisis, racial inequality, and Big Tech.

At a Distance is a window into what world-changing visionaries across multiple disciplines were contemplating during a historic year that saw more than four million coronavirus-related deaths, mass calls for social-justice reform, and a turbulent U.S. presidential election.