Since she began her recording career in the '70s, Patti Smith has never been shy about recording covers of her favorite songs, such as Van Morrison's "Gloria." Now she's released an album consisting entirely of other people's songs — a dozen covers, originally recorded by acts as diverse as the Doors, Nirvana and the Rolling Stones, under the simple title Twelve.
Food historian William Woys Weaver. Weaver is a leading expert on the culinary traditions and cooking techniques of the 18th and 19th centuries, and he often is often consulted by restoration organizations such as Old Sturbridge Village and Colonial Williamsburg. Weaver also tracks the emergence of regional American cuisines, often focusing on what the common workers, farmers, and slaves ate. Weaver's new book, "America Eats," examines American foods as a valid form of folk art. It also features traditional recipes adapted for the modern kitchen.
Journalist and novelist Philip Caputo's new novel, Acts of Faith, is set in Sudan during that country's civil war. It depicts the consequences — intended and otherwise — the conflict has on aid workers and missionaries involved in relief work.
"There's not a lot of heroic acts in middle school," Maya Erskine said in this 2019 interview. She and Anna Konkle play 13-year-old versions of themselves in the comedy series PEN15, now in season 2.
In So We Read On, Maureen Corrigan looks at the story behind The Great Gatsby, from F. Scott Fitzgerald's life to the era in which it's set. She says it's her favorite novel, but it wasn't always.
One of American popular music's great enigmas, says critic Ed Ward, is what would have happened to Patsy Cline's career if it had lasted longer. She was poised to revolutionize the role of the solo female singer, as well as Nashville's place in the music business, when she was killed in a plane crash. Decca has just released her complete recordings on an album called Sweet Dreams.
Jazz critic Kevin Whitehead reviews a reissue of music by singer and pianist Fats Waller from 1940-1943, the years just before his death. Although this period is considered by many to be his least productive, Kevin says Waller was great at any time.
Her book Eats, Shoots & Leaves, a best seller in Britain, is a narrative history of punctuation. Truss claims that with the advent of e-mail and text messaging, proper punctuation is an endangered species. Truss is also the author of three novels and numerous radio comedy dramas. She has been a television critic and sports columnist for The Times (London). She also won Columnist of the Year award for her work for Women's Journal. She now reviews books for the Sunday Times of London.
Celebrated Japanese crime writer Natsuo Kirino made her American debut in 2005, when the novel Out was translated into English, and became a finalist for an Edgar award.
Out told the weird story of an abused wife who strangles her husband and then seeks the aid of her coworkers in a boxed lunch factory in covering up the murder. The novel was a sensation not simply because it lured American readers out of the tourist precincts of Japan, but because of its distinctive worldview and tone.
Another Kirino novel, Grotesque, has just been translated into English.
Celebrity chef Mario Batali is the co-proprietor of three Manhattan restaurants — Babbo, Lupa and Esca — and Italian Wine Merchants, devoted to the wines of Italy. Batali is also the host of [two shows on TV's Food Network: Molto Mario and Mario Eats Italy. His books are The Babbo Cookbook, Simple Italian Food and Holiday Food.
A Mighty Heart tells the story of the hunt in Pakistan for kidnapped Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl through the eyes of his very pregnant wife, Mariane. The film is gripping: Apart from flashbacks that dramatize Mariane's idyllic memories of Daniel, it's clipped, blunt, and grimly realistic. It's almost a police procedural, with a focus on the nuts and bolts of the investigation. Our suspense is lessened, though, by our knowledge that it will end badly.
In July 2003, newspaper columnist Robert Novak published the name of undercover CIA operative Valerie Plame — shortly after Plame's husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, wrote an op-ed piece contradicting President Bush's contention that Saddam Hussein had tried to procure yellowcake uranium from the West African nation of Niger.
