The last week before the long summer recess is usually crunchtime for Congress, but that hasn't been the case for the 113th. New York Times correspondent Jonathan Weisman joins Fresh Air's Terry Gross to discuss why this Congress has passed so few laws.
William Masters and Virginia Johnson became famous in the 1960s for their research into the physiology of human sexuality. In Masters of Sex, biographer Thomas Maier explores the duo's research methods, which for years remained shrouded in secrecy.
Maggie Shipstead mocks the pretensions of New England WASPs, while Jessica Lott executes unexpected riffs on the student-professor relationship plot. Critic Maureen Corrigan reviews two stellar fiction newcomers.
On the clarinetist's latest album, the blues might be modernized or tweaked, but it's never far away. Fresh Air's jazz critic says The Edenfred Files is modest in a good way, like a musical chapbook or novella. The scale suits Harper's pointedly focused music.
The stack of recent DVD releases of old TV series keeps getting higher. Fresh Air critic David Bianculli picks four that he believes are the TV equivalent of a fun summer read.
Boggs moved to Washington in 1941, when her husband was elected to Congress. After his plane disappeared on a campaign trip through Alaska, she ran for his seat and won, becoming the first woman elected to Congress from her state.
In addition to playing a cable news producer on Aaron Sorkin's HBO drama, Gallagher is a Tony Award-winning Broadway performer. He tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross about starring in a punk rock musical and rehearsing Sorkin's Newsroom scripts.
Blue Jasmine finds the filmmaker stuck in old ruts; though his technique is as sound as ever, his worldview seems to have congealed decades ago. Cate Blanchett, Sally Hawkins and Alec Baldwin star in a story inspired by Bernie Madoff and Blanche DuBois.
Even as Detroit files for bankruptcy protection, Bruce Katz says many American cities are showing promising signs of renewal. In The Metropolitan Revolution, he writes that, together, cities and suburbs have the power to take on the challenges Washington won't.
In 2008, a cycling accident left bioethicist Margaret Battin's husband quadriplegic and dependent on life support technology. The accident forced Battin, a right-to-die advocate, to reflect on the positions she's taken in the past and decide whether she still believes in them.
In his book, which has just won the Hessell-Tiltman Prize for History, Keith Lowe describes a land with no governments, schools, banks or shops, where rape was rampant and women prostituted themselves for food. Flying in the face of usual post-WWII narratives, Lowe sheds light on a complex history.
For years, there were rumors that filmmaker Henry Jaglom had taped hours of his conversations with Orson Welles but that the tapes had been lost. They weren't. Now the transcripts have been released in a new book, edited and introduced by Peter Biskind.
A pioneering musician, and the mother of jazz singer Catherine Russell, Carline Ray died July 18. In the 1940s, Ray found a home in the all-female band The International Sweethearts of Rhythm as a guitarist and vocalist. In 2012, Fresh Air spoke with Russell about her mother.
In a new novel, David Gilbert tells the story of a famous, aging writer whose children do not feel as warmly toward him as his readers do. Gilbert wrote the book as his own father was getting older and his son was approaching his teen years.
As the Cairo bureau chief for The New York Times, David Kirkpatrick has covered events in the region since January 2011. He says that the toppling of the democratically elected Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi throws the changes of the Arab Spring into question.
Two new documentaries are making headlines. Gabriela Cowperthwaite's Blackfish centers on the whale that killed a trainer before an Orlando SeaWorld audience in 2010. The Act of Killing by human rights researcher Josh Oppenheimer, looks at the mass executions of communists in Indonesia in the 1960s.
After "Robert Galbraith" was revealed to be the pen name for J.K. Rowling, many readers have been circling back to a "debut" novel they'd initially overlooked. Critic Maureen Corrigan says the mystery is respectable, but she will shelve it in the "I've read worse, but I've read better" category.
The comedian's routines tackle some of the really serious problems she has: OCD, bipolar disorder, suicidal thoughts. But you have to laugh, because she's that funny. Bamford talks to Fresh Air's Terry Gross about her parents and her Web-only programs.
The singer-songwriter earned a name for himself while playing with Drive-By Truckers and The 400 Unit, but on his new album — written after he got sober — Isbell finds a new level of emotional honesty. Here, he talks with Terry Gross about his life and plays songs from Southeastern.
