Novelist Walter Mosley explains how watching his mother's experience with dementia helped him craft his latest novel, The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey, which asks: Would you repair your failing memory if it meant your life span would also be significantly shortened?
The filmmaker was just 23 years old when she won South by Southwest jury prize for her second film, Tiny Furniture. The comedy stars Dunham and her real-live mom and sister playing fictionalized versions of themselves in their real-life apartment in New York City.
In Darren Aronofsky's ballet thriller, a repressed ballerina must surrender to her sexuality to master Swan Lake's leading role. Critic David Edelstein says the dramatic film is a "camp classic -- like Showgirls remade by Roman Polanski."
Fresh Air jazz critic Kevin Whitehead picks CDs, books and a DVD for the jazz lover on your list this holiday season. His selections include a book of Sonny Rollins photographs and music from the first season of the HBO series Treme.
Critic John Powers has a theory about movies: The best gifts to give aren't necessarily the most recent hits. His 13 picks for the 2010 holiday season include a Charlie Chaplin classic, a Charles Laughton masterpiece and one of the greatest documentaries ever produced.
New York Times reporter Adam Liptak wrote recently that the Supreme Court under Chief Justice John Roberts has become the most conservative court in living memory. Liptak discusses several recent decisions that have been unusually long -- but also vague and opaque.
West's new album, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, both chastises and praises the hip-hop singer for being an arrogant perfectionist. Rock critic Ken Tucker says it may be an example of "egregious self-aggrandizement," but it's also "superb music-making."
"You can no longer talk about what black America thinks or feels," says Pulitzer Prize--winning columnist Eugene Robinson. His new book, Disintegration: The Splintering of Black America, describes how African-American communities are becoming increasingly disconnected from one another.
Laura Hillenbrand -- the award-winning author of Seabiscuit -- has returned in fighting form with her latest nonfiction biography, Unbroken. The story of a pilot who survived a crash against all odds speaks to the indefatigable human spirit and our collective will to overcome.
100 years after his death, Mark Twain's autobiography was published the way Twain himself wished. Fresh Air's David Bianculli talks with Robert Hirst, of the Mark Twain Project, about editing and publishing Twain's work.
The Black Swan star describes what it was like to train with members of the New York City Ballet in preparation for her role as a mentally unstable ballet dancer in Darren Aronofsky's psychological thriller.
French actor Vincent Cassel plays a ballet-company boss who pushes a fragile Natalie Portman in Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan. The character is a hard guy -- though not quite the ruthless gangster Cassel played in the thriller Mesrine.
The co-star of Love and Other Drugs describes what it's like to go from the sweet, PG-rated fantasy of The Princess Diaries to shooting some fairly explicit romantic-drama nude scenes with Jake Gyllenhaal.
The beloved actor from Airplane! and the Naked Gun franchise died Sunday. Fresh Air remembers Nielsen with highlights from a 1993 interview, in which he discussed his transition from dramatic roles in The Poseidon Adventure and Forbidden Planet to starring in spoofs and parodies.
For most readers, the beauty of Jane Austen's style lies in her elegant syntax and punctuation. Now, an Oxford scholar has created a furor by suggesting that the credit for Austen's style should really be given to the man who edited her novels. But linguist Geoff Nunberg remains skeptical.
Oncologist Siddhartha Mukherjee chronicles how our understanding of cancer has evolved in his new book The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer.
Jay-Z is one of the most successful hip-hop artists of all time. On Fresh Air, he discusses growing up in Brooklyn surrounded by drugs and violence, and the stories behind many of his famous songs.
Twenty-one songs Springsteen recorded for his 1978 album Darkness on the Edge of Town are now being released for the first time. Springsteen spoke to actor Ed Norton at the Toronto Film Festival about the making of Darkness.
Sloan and Barri were the songwriters behind "Eve of Destruction" and wrote hits for Herman's Hermits, The Mamas and the Papas and The Turtles. Critic Ed Ward examines their career and their many successful songs.
The late director Elia Kazan had a profound influence on American film in the decades after World War II. Critic John Powers says a new box set featuring 15 of his films, including On the Waterfront and Wild River, is a "terrific collection anchored by some of the most mythic performances in film history."
