Isbell is a singer-songwriter who came to prominence as a member of the Southern rock group Derive-By Truckers. He left that band in 2007, in part because of the substance-abuse problems he describes on his new solo album, Southeastern.
For nearly 50 years, neuroscientist Suzanne Corkin worked with Henry Molaison, who lost most of his memory in 1953 after experimental surgery for severe seizures. Their work together taught us much of what we know today about memory, and she writes about Mollison and their work in her new book.
Seven years after Fox canceled the cult-favorite sitcom, a fourth season of Arrested Development is streaming on Netflix. The show's creator, Mitch Hurwitz, tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross that if the show doesn't get the right ratings this time, he can't blame the time slot.
The civil war in Syria is attracting fighters from all over, threatening the region's tenuous stability. Robert Malley of the International Crisis Group tells Fresh Air that "a war in Syria with regional spillover has now become a regional war with a Syrian focus."
Show creator Mitch Hurwitz advises against binge-watching the new season, but TV critic David Bianculli begs to differ. He says hidden identities and perplexing mysteries unfold slowly, and watching everything in one sitting helps make those connections ever clearer.
In her new memoir, Fairyland, Alysia Abbott describes her childhood as the daughter of an openly gay father in San Francisco while the gay liberation movement was gaining strength. Her book is based largely on her father's journals, which she found after his death in 1992.
The East is a romantic activist outlaw fantasy in which Brit Marling plays an agent who poses as a radical activist to catch an eco-terrorist group. It's one of those melodramas in which someone on the morally wrong side has a spasm of conscience and maybe crosses over. Maybe.
For a dozen years, a music festival that highlights the music of Africa has been held near Timbuktu, Mali. This year, a nationalist uprising and ongoing battles made the Festival au Desert impossible. A new recording from the most recent event helps fans continue to celebrate the music.
In Richard Linklater's third film about Jesse and Celine, the two have officially coupled up, but it's no fairy tale. The love is still there, but the daily grind is getting in the way of communication. Linklater, Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy join Fresh Air's Terry Gross to talk about the new film.
New York Times reporter Barry Meier's new e-book explores opiate painkillers and the consequences that come with long-term use. He focuses in particular on OxyContin, how it came to be prescribed for chronic pain, what the consequences have been, and how it became a street drug.
Fresh Air's critic at large John Powers returns from the 2013 Cannes Film Festival with tales of the good, the bad, and the parties. He says Blue Is the Warmest Color was "the film of the festival" while Only God Forgives was the biggest disappointment.
The band just released its third album, Modern Vampires of the City. Chief lyricist and singer Ezra Koenig has described it as the third part of a trilogy about maturing. As part of that process, the album finds sustenance invoking Desmond Dekker and The Rolling Stones.
"The more carny it got, the better I liked it," King says of his new thriller, Joyland. The book, set in a North Carolina amusement park in 1973, is part horror novel and part supernatural thriller. King talks with Fresh Air's Terry Gross about his career writing horror, and about what scares him now.
Recently, Fresh Air contributor Maureen Corrigan found a letter from then-Secretary of War James Forrestal that had been sent to her father after he had been honorably discharged from the U.S. Navy in 1945. In that letter, she found an expression of gratitude that could serve us well today.
The Truffaut borrowings are explicit in Noah Baumbach's Frances Ha, while Richard Linklater's Before Midnight takes its cues from Eric Rohmer's gentle but expansive talkfests. In both films, conversation is a centerpiece as characters navigate relationships.
The mythology surrounding The Doors generally centers on its lead singer, Jim Morrison. Morrison is still considered one of rock's tortured poets, but The Doors' sound was based largely on Ray Manzarek's keyboard playing. His are the riffs immortalized in songs like "Riders on the Storm."
Steven Soderbergh's latest film is a showbiz story about Vegas icon Liberace and his secret lover — played, respectively, by Michael Douglas and Matt Damon, both terrific in their roles. It premieres Sunday on HBO.
In What Maisie Knew, Moore plays a troubled rock star who might initially seem like a rotten person, but Moore's performance humanizes the character, highlighting her human frailties — something Moore has done in many parts.
Random Access Memories finds the French duo changing its music-making process in an effort to make its songs sound more human. To that end, Daft Punk enlists guest stars such as Pharrell Williams and Nile Rodgers.
After years trying to conceive, novelist Jennifer Gilmore and her husband decided to adopt. What they thought would be a relatively simple process was instead a long and painful one. In her latest novel, Gilmore channels these autobiographical experiences into fiction.
