Neurologist Alvaro Pascual-Leone, talks about the use of TMS, transcranial magnetic stimulation to treat patients with autisim spectrum disorder. One of his patients, John Elder Robison Robison participated in a six-month-long study, in which he received weekly TMS treatments. He details the treatments — and the emotional awakening that resulted — in a new memoir, Switched On.
The Pulitzer Prize-winning composer doesn't play on his new jazz album, but critic Kevin Whitehead says Old Locks and Irregular Verbs is nevertheless a perfect introduction to Threadgill's voice.
Seventy-four-year-old author Arlene Heyman discusses her debut short-story collection, which focuses on the sex lives and intimate relationships of characters in their 60s and 70s.
Le Carré's 1993 novel comes to life in a six-part AMC series. John Powers says the show, which jets from Egyptian streets to posh Alpine lodges, is one of the most enjoyable thrillers he's seen on TV.
The co-star of the X-Files discusses his novel, Bucky F*cking Dent, about a son reuniting with his absentee father. Duchovny earned a master's degree in literature before starting his TV career.
The former lead singer for the J. Geils Band has been making albums on his own since the mid-1980s. Reviewer Ken Tucker says his latest is one of the most varied collections Wolf has ever recorded.
National Geographic contributor David Quammen discusses Yellowstone National Park and it's greater ecosystem, and the conflicts between the wildlife, the thousands of visitors who come, and the ranchers who live nearby.
Jon Favreau's adaptation of the Disney classic reprises the story of a little boy raised by wolves. Critic David Edelstein says The Jungle Book seamlessly blends computer animation and storytelling.
Comic W. Kamau Bell finds humor in the parts of America that make him uncomfortable. Speaking to Fresh Air's Terry Gross, Bell likens his new CNN series United Shades of America to a travel show that takes him "to all sorts of different places that I [am] either afraid to go, or you wouldn't expect me to go."
Edward Humes describes his new book as a "transportation detective story" that chronicles the hidden characters, locations and machinery driving our same-day-delivery, traffic-packed world.
Lage began playing guitar at the age of 5 and appeared on stage at the Grammys at 13. He talks to Fresh Air about growing up a guitar prodigy, his father's gentle coaching and his new trio album.
At the age of 85, Edna O'Brien has just brought out one of her best and most ambitious novels yet. The Little Red Chairs is personal and political; charming and grotesque; a novel of manners and a novel of monsters.
Growing up, comics Nadia Manzoor and Radhika Vaz never dreamed that they would one day co-star in a sketch-comedy series about two immigrant Muslim women in Brooklyn. But Manzoor who grew up in a Pakistani-Muslim community in London, and Vaz who grew up in India now star in the web series Shugs & Fats. The series won a Gotham Award for breakthru short form series.
At 46, former Daily Show correspondent Samantha Bee says she's not very concerned with what people think of her.
"Being in my late 40s has been absolutely freeing and liberating for me," Bee tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross. "I'm a married woman with kids. I'm a professional. People just can't [put me] me in a tiny box that makes sense to them, so now I just don't care that much what people think of me ... and now I do my own thing."
Point-of-view is passed like a baton among the tortured main characters in Joachim Trier's new film. Critic David Edelstein says Louder than Bombs is intimate, touching and "insistently alive."
PR Watch's Lisa Graves says that states can overrule local laws, and that legislatures are increasingly using preemption to stop things like minimum wage increases and protections for LGBT people.
The raucous singer turns thoughtful on his new album. Critic Ken Tucker calls Upland Stories a "marvelous mongrel mixture" of bluegrass banjo-picking, honky-tonk pedal steel and stark folk phrasings.
A beautiful and harrowing novel about a young mother who is diagnosed with leukemia, which is based on the author's real life nightmare when his wife was diagnosed with the disease and died two and half years later.
