The singer's new album is a work of great, accomplished craft about the pointlessness of crafting anything you care about, because the world is just going to ruin it on you.
Evan Mandery's A Wild Justice is an account of the legal battles that led to the U.S. Supreme Court striking down capital punishment, then reversing course four years later. He says that today, prisoners who are sentenced to death have a 10 percent chance of actually being executed.
California parolee Charles Manson arrived in San Francisco in 1967, when the city was full of young waifs looking for a guru. In Manson, Jeff Guinn argues that if the cult leader had instead been paroled in a place like Nebraska, he likely would not have been so successful.
Last month, Ronstadt revealed that she has Parkinson's disease and can no longer sing. Her new memoir, Simple Dreams, reflects on a long career. In this conversation with Fresh Air's Terry Gross, she offers frank insights on sex, drugs, and why "competition was for the horse races."
That's the collective nickname Harlem-ites used for them: white women who raised family exile and social ostracism to be part of the movement. They were philanthropists and thrill seekers, educators and artists, hostesses and lovers. Carla Kaplan tells their stories in Miss Anne in Harlem.
Many think of the feminist movement as a thing of the past, but Debora Spar says the battle isn't won yet. She tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross about the misinterpretation that got us where we are, and the need to improve support and pay for working women.
When dictionaries add trendy words like "twerk," they're prioritizing the fleeting language habits of the young, says Geoff Nunberg. And our fascination with novel words tends to eclipse subtle changes in the meanings of old ones -- "which are often more consequential."
Before whistle-blower Edward Snowden became a household name, he was an anonymous source. The Washington Post's Barton Gellman recounts how he began corresponding with Snowden and the process of reporting on the government's Internet data mining program.
No. 28 was the first president to team up with America's legislative branch, and he used a groundbreaking moral argument to get the U.S. involved in World War I. A. Scott Berg's new book, Wilson, fills in missing pieces of the president's life.
A key to the ongoing allure of Dylan's music lies in its ability to stand apart from its time. A new collection of alternate takes and demos re-evaluates the critical flop that was 1970's Self Portrait.
His new book, Dissident Gardens, follows three generations of an activist family, from Rose, a secular Jew and communist, to Sergius, her commune-raised grandson. The book is fiction, but its characters were inspired by Lethem's own family story.
In 1950, a red-haired Alabama boy who'd learned about radio and electronics in the U.S. Army opened a recording studio to document the blues and country music he loved. A new box set compiles the beginnings of Sam Philipps'
The long-running rock band's latest album is driven by themes of loss and grief, set against ferocious guitars and soaring vocals. Fresh Air critic Ken Tucker says the provocatively titled I Hate Music is full of typically superlative moments.
Kittens don't play -- they hunt. And their aloof appearance has evolutionary roots. A new book explains cats' mysterious nature and how their relationship with humans has changed over the years.
Cradle to Grave brings at-rish youth into a Philadelphia hospital to get them to think about the consequences of getting shot. "You only have to die one time," the director tells them, "but the people that you leave behind die a little bit each and every day for the rest of their lives."
Alice McDermott's characters can often be described as average, and Marie, the heroine of her latest novel, is no exception. But critic Maureen Corrigan says the power of McDermott's writing is that she can make even Marie's run-of-the-mill life one for the record books.
The new mobile operating system's design acknowledges that we no longer need physical analogs -- like a camera shutter or old-timey microphone -- to describe an app's function.
At 60, New York City composer John Zorn is wiser, sure, but no less prolific, thoughtful and antagonistic than before. He tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross that, at his age, "there are no more doubts."
