In the winter of 1949, a group of judges — including poets T.S. Eliot and Robert Lowell — met to decide the winner of the prestigious Bollingen Prize for the best book of poetry published in the United States the previous year. They gave the prize to Ezra Pound for his collection The Pisan Cantos. Then all hell broke loose.
In 1952, record producer Norman Granz brought six jazz stars into the studio to back a singer from outside their circle: Hollywood song and dance man Fred Astaire.
Critic David Edlestein says Franco sends audiences into hysterics as the director and star of a new biopic about Tommy Wiseau, an oddball filmmaker with vision and drive — but very little talent.
As more women come forward with charges of sexual harassment, and more high profile men are brought down, a talk with Jane Mayer and Rebecca Traister about some of the tough questions being raised, and a look back at another earlier turning point when Anita Hill testified against Clarence thomas during his confirmation hearings.
Director Guillermo del Toro's new film is both a stylized vision of Cold War paranoia and an old-school monster movie. Reviewer Justin Chang says he wanted to love The Shape of Water more than he did.
Anthony Atamanuik and Peter Grosz's new Comedy Central series is set up like a late night talk show, hosted by President Trump with Vice President Pence as his sidekick.
Dr. Henry Jay Przybylo specializes in pediatric anesthesiology and treats about 1,000 children a year, including premature babies. His new memoir is called Counting Backwards.
Ward's National Book Award-winning novel, Sing, Unburied, Sing, is set in a small town modeled after her own rural hometown. It centers on a biracial young boy confronting the South's racial legacy.
Standup comic Patton Oswalt on life and comedy in the Trump era, and the sudden death of his wife last year which he talks about in his new special, Annihilation.
Set during the early days of World War II, Darkest Hour chronicles the tense and tumultuous days following Winston Churchill's appointment as prime minister of England.
Singer-songwriter Margo Price brings her guitar to the studio and sings some songs from her new album which Rolling Stone described as "one of the most political country records in years."
A teenage boy falls for an older man in a sensual new film by Italian director Luca Guadagnino. Critic David Edelstein says Call Me By Your Name is nothing short of a masterpiece.
"The constellation of Russian connections circling around Planet Trump is quite extraordinary," says Guardian reporter Luke Harding. His new book is Collusion.
Maya Jasanoff weaves together biography, history, literature and her own travels in a new book about the globe-trotting author. Reviewer John Powers says Jasanoff's portrait of Conrad is terrific.
Reporter Jake Bernstein helped break the story of the Panama Papers, the leaked documents that detail the offshore tax havens of the super rich. His new book is Secrecy World.
Dee Rees' sweeping epic follows two families in the Mississippi Delta during the 1940s. Reviewer Justin Chang says Mudbound is "easily one of the year's most ambitious American movies."
Smith, who died Sunday, started her daily column for The New York Daily News in 1976. In 2000, she told Fresh Air: "I always held back from writing things that were intentionally hurtful."
Actress Greta Gerwig has made a career starring in movies about quirky women. She played a driftless dancer in Frances Ha and a punk photographer in 20th Century Women. Now she's written and directed her first film, an exploration of mother-daughter relationships called Lady Bird.
Mudbound follows two families — one white and one black — just before, during and after World War II. Rees says her experiences growing up in Nashville, Tenn., in the 1980s informed her new film.
