It takes one to know one: Linguist Geoff Nunberg discusses the apolitical, prosaic prowess of the late New York Times conservative wordsmith, William Safire.
When Cash was 18, her father (you know him as Johnny) presented her with a gift: a list of 100 essential country songs to help the budding singer-songwriter connect with and better understand the music that came before her. After holding on to it for the past few decades, Roseanne Cash decided to turn that gift into The List, her new album.
A Serious Man is the Coen Brothers latest (and most specifically Jewish) take on the question of cosmic injustice. Larry Gopnik, a staid Mid-western physics professor, watches helplessly as his life begins to crumble. Critic David Edelstein says the movie unfolds like a strange, sad joke that makes you wonder whether the punchline "will make you laugh or want to kill yourself."
Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid discusses the challenges facing President Obama in Afghanistan and Pakistan. His most recent book is Descent into Chaos: The United States and the Failure of Nation Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia.
The Emmy-darling AMC TV series devotes an almost fetishistic attention to style. But is there any substance beyond the surfaces? Critic-at-large John Powers goes looking — and comes back with one especially well-rounded answer.
Author and screenwriter Nick Hornby joins Fresh Air host Terry Gross to discuss his new novel, Juliet, Naked, and his screenplay for the new movie An Education.
Your kids are perfect — just don't tell them that. NurtureShock, the new book by Po Bronson, explores how Americans have misunderstood the role of praise in parenting and what we can do to save our kids from ourselves.
Unitarian minister Forrest Church believed that the knowledge that we must die makes us question what life means. Church, who died Sept. 24, 2009 after a long battle with cancer of the esophagus, was the author of Love and Death: My Journey through the Valley of the Shadow.
Novelist and playwright Dan Fante writes about alcoholism, drug addiction and failed attempts at literary success — all of which he has experienced himself. He discusses the process of reliving his past on paper.
The New York Times columnist and political spitfire, who died Sept. 27 of pancreatic cancer, left behind an indelible legacy in speechwriting and political reporting. We remember Safire with a conversation from the Fresh Air archives.
During the eight years that Bill Clinton was president of the United States, he secretly recorded interviews with Pulitzer Prize-winning author Taylor Branch.
A 2007 scandal involving NFL star Michael Vick exposed the world of illegal dogfighting. Now out of prison, Vick has pledged to help end the practice; Dave Davies talks about the campaign with John Goodwin, Humane Society manager of animal fighting issues, and former dogfighter Sean Moore.
Is the conservative right undergoing a transformation? Journalist David Weigel thinks so. Weigel covers the Republican party for the online magazine The Washington Independent.
Jazz critic Kevin Whitehead reviews the latest CD by alto saxophonist Steve Lehman and his octet. In Travail, Transformation & Flow, Lehman continues his work using computer models to create and drive his improvisation.
John Fogerty's latest album, The Blue Ridge Rangers Rides Again, collects covers so raw and beautiful you'd barely recognize the in-studio perfectionist behind the 1973 album whose title it salutes.
Matt Latimer, speechwriter to President George W. Bush during his last months in office, says his old boss didn't always stick to the script. His new tell-all memoir recounts more than one startling comment that Latimer says his boss made behind closed doors.
Morris Dickstein's dazzling new cultural history of the Great Depression, called Dancing in the Dark, is one of those "everything but the kitchen sink" kind of books — that really works.
