Kai Strittmatter's new book, We Have Been Harmonized: Life in China's Surveillance State, examines the role of surveillance in China's authoritarian state. He warns that Chinese President Xi Jinping, who came to power in 2012, has embraced an ideological rigidity unknown since the days of Mao Zedong.
Interested in learning a new skill in the new year? CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta says that will also improve your brain health. "The act of experiencing something new — or even doing something that's typical for you, but in a different way — can all generate these new brain cells," says Gupta, a practicing neurosurgeon and associate professor of medicine at Emory University School of Medicine. He has a new book about the brain.
Luker, who died of ALS Dec. 23, received Tony nominations for her performances in Showboat, The Music Man and Mary Poppins. She spoke to Fresh Air in 1999, 2000, 2013 and 2020.
Dozens of notable jazz musicians died this year, many from COVID-19. Fresh Air critic Kevin Whitehead remembers some of the legends lost, including Bucky Pizzarelli, Ellis Marsalis and Jimmy Heath.
The Netflix limited series tells the story of an orphaned girl who becomes a chess pro in a male-dominated world. Frank talks about consulting with grand masters and maximizing the drama of the game.
Atlantic writer Clint Smith grew up surrounded by Confederate iconography, being told that the Civil War wasn't about slavery. He shares a poem from his forthcoming book, How the Word Is Passed.
It was a year when most of us stayed away from movie theaters, but it wasn't a year without movies. While the major studios largely set their sights on 2021 (and a few released their big titles on streaming services), it was an unsurprisingly terrific year for independent narrative films, feature-length documentaries and pictures of all types and genres from overseas.
Podcasts have been doing a great job keeping people company during the pandemic. Critic Nick Quah shares some of his favorites, including Lost Notes: 1980, Reply All, My Year in Mensa and Floodlines.
"You have a group of 650 people whose wealth has gone up a trillion dollars since mid-March," says Chuck Collins of the Institute for Policy Studies. He recommends taxing a portion of those gains.
At the onset of the pandemic, the Wilco frontman began filming The Tweedy Show, an at-home Instagram series with his wife and sons. His also has a new memoir, How to Write One Song, and a new album.
The holidays have never felt more ambivalent — a feeling captured by Phoebe Bridgers' "Christmas Song"; The Bird and the Bee's "You and I at Christmas Time"; and Nick Lowe's "Winter Wonderland."
Bassett plays world-renowned jazz saxophonist Dorothea Williams in Disney/Pixar's latest animated film. She talks about that role, as well as the challenges she's faced as a Black woman in Hollywood.
Smith's 1948 follow-up to A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is a forgotten novel that deserves to be exhumed. The things that made it an awkward response to its predecessor make it more intriguing now.
The album showcases 45 minutes from Coleman's '71 sets at Baltimore's Famous Ballroom, where the atmosphere was typically lively and the jazz legend was elegant and full of fire.
The Family Ties star was diagnosed with early onset Parkinson's disease in 1991. He says that if he doesn't know if he can do something, he fakes it — a strategy that works 80 percent of the time.
Boseman died of cancer in 2020, not long after he finished shooting this adaptation of August Wilson's play. His final screen performance — as a troubled trumpet player — ranks among his best.
Science writer Ed Yong of The Atlantic says the coming months will usher in the most complicated immunization program the U.S. has ever attempted. Yong has been covering the pandemic since it began, writing about nearly every aspect.
Music producers Lance and April Ledbetter talk about curating their new anthology, which collects the flip sides of the 78s Smith chose for his 1952 Anthology of American Folk Music.
