Journalist Joe Hagan says the upcoming election will be "the ugliest campaign ever." He details how superPACs have changed the election game, bringing an unprecedented flood of outside money to fund opposition research and negative ads.
Now in his late 70s, the singer-songwriter has just released a new album, his first collection of new material in eight years, titled Old Ideas. Rock critic Ken Tucker says these Cohen songs work as both pop music and as prayers.
Hilma Wolitzer's finely observed comedy of manners follows the romantic misadventures of recently widowed 62-year-old Edward Schuyler as he re-enters the dating pool with a splash.
Stew's new album Making It is, in part, about his relationship with his ex-girlfriend and songwriting partner, Heidi Rodewald. The two musicians, who continue to work together professionally, also collaborated on the 2008 Tony-winning musical Passing Strange.
HBO's newest series Luck is set in and around the world of horse racing. TV critic David Bianculli says the series, which stars Dustin Hoffman and Nick Nolte, is loaded with thoroughbred talent.
Etta James, the legendary vocalist who is perhaps known for her version of the song "At Last," has died. She was 73. Fresh Air remembers the singer with excerpts from a 1994 interview about her lengthy career.
Both Close and co-star Janet McTeer have received Academy Award nominations for their roles in the period drama. Set in Dublin before World War I, it centers on a woman who finds more freedom by living life as a men.
Did the economic stimulus program amount to a costly failure, or save the U.S. from a depression? ProPublica investigative reporter Michael Grabell's new book explains how the 2009 stimulus package was passed and what happened to taxpayers' money.
The new Fox series Touch stars Kiefer Sutherland as the father of an 11-year-old boy with some significant disabilities -- and some significant abilities as well. TV critic David Bianculli says by the end of the first episode, you'll know you're watching something a little different.
The new HBO drama Luck examines the inside world of horse racing through the lives of thoroughbred breeders, owners, jockeys and gamblers. Series creator David Milch spent much of his childhood at the track and has struggled in the past with gambling addiction.
The band didn't have many big hits, but it helped define the music of its generation. With the release of The Smiths' complete works, rock historian Ed Ward looks back and tries to figure out what made the group so important.
In his book Glock: The Rise of America's Gun, Paul Barrett traces how the sleek, high-capacity Austrian weapon found its way into Hollywood films and rap lyrics, not to mention two-thirds of all U.S. police departments.
The Inquisition revolutionized record-keeping and surveillance techniques that are still used today, says Cullen Murphy. His new book God's Jury draws parallels between some of the interrogation techniques used in previous centuries with the ones used today.
Bandleader and producer Johnny Otis, who launched and then nurtured the careers of many of R&B's greatest singers, died Tuesday at his home near Los Angeles. He was 90. Fresh Air remembers Otis with excerpts from a 1989 interview.
Ralph Fiennes' directorial debut adapts Shakespeare's Coriolanus, about a Roman general with his eye on political office. Critic David Edelstein says that in Fiennes' hands, the modern-day update makes for thrilling moviegoing.
Longtime Boston Globe reporters Michael Kranish and Scott Helman start their biography of Mitt Romney by examining his ancestors, many of whom played crucial roles in the development of the Mormon faith. The Real Romney also examines the candidate's political beliefs and his career in private equity.
Gerardo Naranjo's gripping film about the Mexican drug war is Mexico's submission this year for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Critic John Powers says it deftly illuminates a society plagued with fear.
In the past year, actor Michael Fassbender has played a mutant villain in X-Men: First Class, psychoanalyst Carl Jung in A Dangerous Method, Mr. Rochester in Jane Eyre and a sex addict in Shame. He discusses several of those roles, as well as his part in Inglorious Basterds.
Botanist Nicholas Money's book Mushroom takes readers inside the world of the fungal organisms that appear overnight on lawns, are occasionally poisonous and appear in everything from Alice in Wonderland to some lifesaving medications.
