Roy Orbison didn't really find his identity until he signed with a small Nashville label, Monument, in 1959. Ed Ward looks at the 17 singles that put him, and the Monument label, on the map.
For the first time, the complete adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends are available on DVD. TV critic David Bianculli says even 50 years later, the humor in the original episodes still "hits it out of the park."
Former Assistant Secretary of Education Diane Ravitch explains why she was once an early advocate of No Child Left Behind, school vouchers and charter schools — and what changed her mind.
The debate over school reform is often contentious — and charter schools are often a key part of that debate. Educational consultant Andrew Rotherham explains why he supports strategies that will redesign American public education with the help of charter schools and teacher accountability.
The New Yorker's Ryan Lizza details President Obama's response to the ongoing uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East. He explains why the president's actions — in Egypt and then in Libya — say a great deal about the administration's larger foreign policy ideology.
David Foster Wallace's unfinished novel, The Pale King, was recently published. But to truly enjoy his work, says critic John Powers, you must read his earlier pieces, which were filled with "a staggering eye for detail" from "a mind that was never predictable."
The singer-songwriter's new album, Hard Bargain, includes a new song about her days with country-rock pioneer Gram Parsons and a tribute to her late friend, singer-songwriter Kate McGarrigle.
Since the 1960s, the electric guitar has provided a bridge between international folk cultures and modern pop music. An example today is the singer and guitarist Bombino from Niger, whose album Agadez contains currents of blues and rock, along with traces of African folk.
New York Times financial writer Diana Henriques was the first journalist to interview Bernie Madoff after he was sent to prison. Henriques' new book, The Wizard of Lies, details how Madoff created the biggest Ponzi scheme in history after playing a prominent role in shaping modern markets.
Anesthesiologist Emery Brown explains what physicians know — and what they don't know — about the effects of anesthesia. Unlocking its mysteries, he says, will help scientists better understand consciousness and sleep — and could lead to better treatments for pain, sleep disorders and depression.
Folksinger Hazel Dickens, a pioneer for women in bluegrass music, died Friday. She was 75. Fresh Air remembers the feminist role model with excerpts from a 1987 interview.
Parasitic tapeworms, the world's largest hornet and a bug with overly aggressive mating habits are all featured in science writer Amy Stewart's book Wicked Bugs, which examines more than 100 of the strangest entomological creatures on the planet.
On Friday, Saturday and Sunday, HBO presents three different types of TV in three days: a new comedy special, a new dramatic telemovie and the return of a continuing drama series. TV critic David Bianculli, who has seen all three, explains why they're all worth watching.
Oncologist Siddhartha Mukherjee chronicles how our understanding of cancer has evolved in his new book The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer.
This interview was originally broadcast on Nov. 17, 2010. Siddhartha Mukherjee recently received the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction for 'The Emperor of all Maladies.'
Incendies is a French-Canadian film that was nominated for a 2010 Academy Award. The title translates as "scorched," and the movie tells the brutal story of a woman who lived through her country's civil war. Critic David Edelstein says it's an extraordinary piece of storytelling.
Combat photographer Joao Silva is at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where he's recovering after losing his legs in an explosion in October. Greg Marinovich is a Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer who was shot four times while covering conflicts. Silva and Marinovich talk about life as war photographers with Fresh Air's Terry Gross.
Saxophonist Tim Berne came up on New York's so-called "downtown scene" 30 years ago. That scene is known for postmodern jump-cutters like John Zorn, who'd leap from one style to another in the space of a beat. But Berne went another way; he's fascinated by gradual transitions.
In the splendid documentary Nostalgia for the Light, Chilean filmmaker Patricio Guzman draws parallels between astronomers searching for stars in the world's driest desert and women searching for the remains of loved ones who were disappeared under the Pinochet regime.
German filmmaker Werner Herzog was one of the few people permitted to enter a cave in France containing the oldest recorded cave paintings. What he saw — and what he imagined — is the subject of a new documentary, The Cave of Forgotten Dreams.
In Mary Gordon's luscious, wistful new novel, two former lovers meet in Rome after not having seen each other for almost 40 years. Book critic Maureen Corrigan praises the book's "undeniable appeal."
