The Vanity Fair critic was an aspiring writer when he arrived in a turbulen Manhattan in 1972. In his memoir, Lucking Out, he writes about the crime and culture (and pornography) he discovered there.
Naturalist Mark Derr says our friendship with dogs and wolves goes back thousands of years more than previously believed. His new book explores how the relationship between humans and wolves developed.
In 14 years on Saturday Night Live, Darrell Hammond did many impressions, including Bill Clinton and Al Gore. But few of his cast members knew that Hammond struggled with drugs, alcohol and self-cutting as a result of systematic childhood abuse.
How do skyscrapers withstand 100-mph winds? How does air circulate inside tall buildings? And what happens when you flush a toilet on the 100th floor? Those questions and more are answered by Kate Ascher in her new book exploring the inner workings of skyscrapers.
In Drake Doremus' drama Like Crazy, a young couple is forced to separate when one of them violates the terms of her student visa. Movie critic David Edelstein says the movie is painful and compelling -- and reminds him of Richard Linklater's Before Sunrise.
The former American Idol winner has just released her fifth album, Stronger. Rock critic Ken Tucker says the record doesn't contain Clarkson's strongest material, but still shows off her powerful vocal cords.
American film critic Pauline Kael was a brash, exuberant female writer at a time when most of her colleagues were buttoned up -- and male. The Age of Movies, a new collection of selected essays and movie reviews from Kael, showcases the gutsy and passionate style that made her a household name.
Facebook, Google, Amazon and Apple are expanding rapidly into finance, advertising, media and retail. Tech writer Farad Manjoo outlines how the four companies are heading in new directions -- and encroaching on each other's territory -- as they try to expand their customer base.
The British character actor shot to international stardom after playing an aging rocker in the 2003 romantic comedy Love Actually. In his latest project, the BBC drama Page Eight, Nighy plays a British intelligence officer who discovers a state secret.
Two years after the death of her husband, Joan Didion suffered the untimely loss of her only daughter. She pieces together her memories of Quintana Roo in her new memoir, Blue Nights.
Criminologist David M. Kennedy's strategy for reducing gang violence has dramatically reduced youth homicide rates nationwide. In his new memoir, Don't Shoot, Kennedy outlines his community meetings and interventions have worked to curb youth violence in more than 70 cities.
At its core, John le Carre's Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy isn't really about espionage, says critic John Powers. The 1974 novel, adapted for the screen in 1979 by the BBC, is actually about secrets and lies and shifting identities -- which is to say, a metaphor for our own daily lives.
SMiLE may be the most famous unreleased album of all time, but it's not really unreleased: bits and pieces of it wound up on other Beach Boys albums. Now that EMI has assembled a definitive collection of the session tracks, Ed Ward has listened to them -- and wonders what the shouting was about.
The darkness of Tom Waits' lyrics is accentuated by the rumble and rasp of his voice, which sounded old even when he was young. On Bad As Me, Waits reflects on loneliness, life, death and heartbreak. Here, he talks to Terry Gross about performing, being a father and writing his haunting melodies.
The PBS documentary series America in Primetime, which premieres this weekend, puts TV under the microscope, analyzing various tropes and character archetypes. Critic David Bianculli says it's the smartest TV show about television he's seen in the past two decades.
The lives of writers drive two films opening this week: The Rum Diary, starring Johnny Depp, dramatizes a Hunter S. Thompson novel. Roland Emmerich's Anonymous, meanwhile, examines who wrote Shakespeare's plays. Critic David Edelstein says both films show how hard it is to write about writers.
Deer Tick has just released its fourth album, Divine Providence. Rock critic Ken Tucker says the album takes the Rhode Island band in a more raw-sounding direction.
David Carr, who writes the Media Equation column for The New York Times, says that despite cuts, the future of journalism has never looked brighter. "I look at my backpack that is sitting here and it contains more journalistic firepower than the entire newsroom that I walked into 30-40 years ago," he says.
Since 2006, 40,000 people have been murdered in Mexico as drug cartels battle each other and the Mexican military. Journalist Ioan Grillo traces how Mexico came to control drug trafficking in El Narco.
