During the summer of 1896, a 10-day heat wave killed nearly 1,500 people across New York City — many of them tenement-dwellers. In Hot Time in the Old Town, historian Ed Kohn describes the disaster — and how a little-known police commissioner named Theodore Roosevelt championed the efforts to help New Yorkers survive the heat.
The historian and author died Friday from complications of Lou Gehrig's disease. Judt discussed his diagnosis on Fresh Air in March 2010, explaining what he'd learned living with ALS -- and how he hoped his family would remember him.
Vanity Fair's Todd Purdum followed President Obama and his advisers around for a day this summer. He says the modern-day presidency would be unrecognizable to previous chief executives -- "thanks to the enormous bureaucracy, congressional paralysis, systematic corruption and disintegrating media."
The futuristic ABC series, starring Matt Frewer as an eerily human computer-generated television host, aired for only two seasons -- but became a pop culture phenomenon. Critic David Bianculli says he's happy the series is finally out on DVD but wishes he could see even more.
Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy has taken U.S. readers by storm. Not since the arrival of Ikea on these shores has Sweden made such an inroad into the American home and imagination. But critic Maureen Corrigan says the impressive "Ice Age" of Nordic mystery writing is well under way.
Jonathan Eig's new book Get Capone reveals new insights about the famous Chicago gangster — including how freely he spoke to reporters, the time he shot himself in the groin, and how venereal disease eventually robbed him of his health and sanity.
The Adam McKay comedy stars Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg as mismatched cops who are suddenly thrust from inside the police precinct out onto the streets. And critic David Edelstein says some scenes had him doubled over with laughter.
Post-modern writer David Mitchell pulls off an old-fashioned yet action-packed tale in his fifth novel, The Thousand Autumns Of Jacob de Zoet. The story follows Jacob, a bookkeeper at an outpost of the Dutch East Indies Company, as he falls for a local midwife in early 19th century Japan.
Will Ferrell plays a cop who prefers pushing paper to chasing criminals in the new comedy from his frequent collaborator Adam McKay. Actor and director join Fresh Air to discuss how they prepared for the buddy-cop film.
In 2008, jazz pianist Fred Hersch slipped into an AIDS-related coma for more than two months. When he came out of the coma, he couldn't walk, eat or play piano. Hersch explains how he rebuilt himself after his illness and composed music for his latest album, Whirl.
An ongoing investigation by PBS' Frontline, The Times-Picayune and ProPublica examines the many violent incidents that took place between police officers and civilians in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Reporter A.C. Thompson recounts the difficulties of trying to piece together the details.
After writing "We Will Rock You" and touring around the world as the lead guitarist in Queen, Brian May made an unusual career choice: He got his Ph.D. in astrophysics. May explains how Queen developed its distinctive sound and explains his fascination with stereoscopic photographs taken in the 1850s.
When Sarah Palin used the word "refudiate," she took a lot of flak -- both for saying she coined the word deliberately and then comparing herself to Shakespeare. Linguist Geoff Nunberg says political slips and errors aren't half as interesting as the way people react to them.
His third novel, Super Sad True Love Story, is a black comedy set in a futuristic America — where books don't exist and where the economy has collapsed. Shteyngart explains why he decided to write a love story in this dystopic vision of the future — and why he thinks technology is changing the way we think.
In 1963, French filmmaker Henri-Georges Clouzot decided to make a movie that would reinvent the movies. It was called Inferno, and the unfinished film was an enormous failure. But a new documentary about the disastrous project is anything but -- critic John Powers says Henri-Georges Clouzot's Inferno is "cinematically thrilling."
NPR senior news analyst Daniel Schorr died a week ago at the age of 93. School covered Watergate for CBS and broke many major stories, including a secret U.S. plot to assassinate Fidel Castro. Fresh Air remembers the legendary broadcast journalist with highlights from a 1994 interview.
Los Lobos has been active since the 1970s, and during that time the band has done everything from opening for Bob Dylan, U2 and the Grateful Dead, to recording a tribute album to Walt Disney soundtracks. Rock critic Ken Tucker says Los Lobos' new album, Tin Can Trust, stands with the group's best work.
Todd Solondz latest deadpan comedy, Life During Wartime, stars Shirley Henderson, Ally Sheedy and Allison Janney as three sisters struggling to find meaning in a bleak world filled with David Lynchian grotesques. Critic David Edelstein says it's the "feel-bad movie of the year.
Actor Steve Carell stars as an amateur taxidermist who enjoys creating elaborate dioramas with his stuffed rodents in the new Jay Roach film, Dinner for Schmucks. The two comedy vets talk improv, pathos and more.
Critic Ed Ward tells the story of one of the most unusual female soul singers to come out of the early 1960s. Sugar Pie DeSanto, who grew up with Etta James, rose to national prominence when her single "I Want to Know" reached the Billboard charts. Fifty years later, she continues to perform and do her signature move, a back flip, on stage.
