Comic Louie Anderson has had a hugely successful stand-up career for the last 30 years, but he admits he wasn't a very good actor early on. "I didn't know who I was or how to do it," he tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross.
Marriage is losing ground in America. According to the U.S. Census, the proportion of married adults dropped from 57 percent in 2000 to 52 percent in 2009. For the first time ever, single adult women outnumber married adult women in the U.S.
Rebecca Traister says the declining marriage rates among adult women are less about the institution of marriage and more about the choices available to women today.
Olivia Laing surveys the landscape of urban alienation in her new book, a work that is part-memoir and part-criticism. Critic Maureen Corrigan says The Lonely City is "absolutely one of a kind."
Social media and dating apps are putting unprecedented pressures on America's teen girls, author Nancy Jo Sales says. Her new book, American Girls, opens with a story about one 13-year-old who received an Instagram request for "noodz" [nude photos] from a boy she didn't know very well.
Growing up, Victor LaValle loved reading the horror stories of H.P. Lovecraft. It wasn't until later that LaValle recognized the racism in Lovecraft's work and felt the need to respond.
Once a grand seaside destination, Atlantic City now faces the prospect of a takeover by the state of New Jersey. Historian Bryant Simon and reporter Amy Rosenberg discuss the city's rise and fall.
Once a grand seaside destination, Atlantic City now faces the prospect of a takeover by the state of New Jersey. Historian Bryant Simon and reporter Amy Rosenberg discuss the city's rise and fall.
Joe R. Lansdale grew up poor in east Texas and worked as a janitor and in a potato field before finding success as a writer. Honky Tonk Samurai is the latest book in his mystery series.
Music from Thad Jones and Mel Lewis' first and seventh Mondays at the Village Vanguard is out on a new two-CD set. Jazz critic Kevin Whitehead says All My Yesterdays explodes with creative energy.
The French are having a huge cultural row over some spelling changes the government is about to put into effect. It leads our linguist Geoff Nunberg to wonder why we never have controversies over spelling like the French do. Why do we insist on putting up with a spelling system that everybody acknowledges is a chaotic mess?
Raitt's new album is dominated by uptempo songs, R&B sounds and complex emotions. Rock critic Ken Tucker says the singer's distinctive style gives Dig In Deep a "vital glow."
Known for her recent work in Downton Abbey and the Harry Potter films, the Oscar-winning actress now stars in The Lady in the Van, a film about an elderly woman who lived in a van for 15 years.
Ethan Canin traces the complicated lives of two generations of mathematical geniuses in his new novel A Doubter's Almanac. Critic Maureen Corrigan calls it an "elegant and devastating novel."
In her new book, Pandemic: Tracking Contagions from Cholera to Ebola and Beyond, Shah discusses the history and science of contagious diseases. She notes that humans put themselves at risk by encroaching on wildlife habitats. "About 60 percent of our new pathogens come from the bodies of animals," she says.
Tobias Lindholm's Oscar-nominated film tells the story of a Danish commander's error in judgment during the war in Afghanistan. Critic David Edelstein says A War will "leave you in pieces."
Trevor Noah, talks about taking over the Daily Show from Jon Stewart, growing up in South Africa the son of a black mother and a white father under apartheid when mixed marriage was illegal, and adapting his stand-up comedy to American audiences.
The opera, by the late composer Maurice Ravel, spins a modern fairy tale about a naughty child at bedtime. Critic Lloyd Schwartz reviews a new recording of it by conductor Seiji Ozawa.
Journalist Susan Jacoby tells Fresh Air that more than half of Americans will change religion at least once in their adult life time. Her new book is Strange Gods: A Secular History of Conversion.
Sue Klebold says she wishes she'd asked her son Dylan "the kinds of questions that would've encouraged him to open up." Published 17 years after the massacre, her new memoir is A Mother's Reckoning.
The cartels' business models are similar to those of big-box stores and franchises, says Tom Wainwright, former Mexico City bureau chief for The Economist. His new book is Narconomics.
