The second full-length album from the Providence, R.I.-rooted band Deer Tick is called Born On Flag Day. Fresh Air rock critic Ken Tucker has a review.
Don Hewitt, who died on Aug. 19 at age 86, didn't invent the TV newsmagazine, but he sure invented the most successful and durable one. David Bianculli offers a remembrance of the man behind 60 Minutes.
Set in German-occupied France, Quentin Tarantino's World War II revenge fantasia Inglourious Basterds is an ungainly pastiche — that also manages to feel organic. David Edelstein has a review.
A re-mastered, newly released back catalog of six albums by the Brit-punk band The Subhumans will remind you why people were knocked out by punk in the 1980s.
The King of Queens star and the writer of last year's acclaimed film The Wrestler have collaborated on a wrenching movie about an obsessive football fan whose life is upended after a brutal encounter with his favorite player.
A founding member of the Fairport Convention and a legendarily accomplished guitar player and songwriter, he's celebrated in a new four-disc career overview from the Shout Factory label.
Richard Russo turns a satiric eye toward matrimony and middle age in his new novel, That Old Cape Magic. Book critic Maureen Corrigan calls the book a "glistening ... chambered nautilus of a novel."
Newspapers are in trouble, and many Web sites, blogs and cable news shows have opinionated hosts at the helm. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Alex Jones talks about his book, Losing the News, and the crisis facing impartial reporting.
Straightforward and kid-friendly, Hayao Miyazaki's Ponyo isn't the animation master's most complicated film. But in some ways, the film's simplicity offers a clearer look at the director's greatness. Movie critic David Edelstein explains.
Rafael Yglesias' novel is inspired by his wife, Margaret, who died in 2004. A Happy Marriage spans their three-decade relationship, from their courtship to her battle with cancer.
The man who gave us the electric guitar was more than just an insatiably curious tinkerer: He was a virtuoso guitarist and at one time a bona fide pop star, and he helped shape the sound of rock 'n' roll. Fresh Air remembers him with an archived interview from 1992.
When last we saw the ad men and women of AMC's Mad Men, the firm had just been bought by a British company and the Cuban missile crisis was underway. Critic David Bianculli offers a sneak peak at what additional drama the new season might hold.
Historian Nelson Lichtenstein discusses the impact of Wal-Mart on both the American and the global economy in his new book, The Retail Revolution: How Wal-Mart Created a Brave New World of Business.
Lisa Sanders' monthly "Diagnosis" column in The New York Times Magazine was an inspiration for the TV series House. Sanders, an internist on the faculty of the Yale University School of Medicine, is the show's technical advisor; her new book is Every Patient Tells a Story: Medical Mysteries and the Art of Diagnosis.
Puppies Behind Bars is a canine training program that enlists prison inmates to train puppies as bomb-sniffing dogs or as service animals. Many of the dogs are then paired with wounded or disabled veterans.
Thomas Pynchon's latest novel, Inherent Vice, is a detective romp set at the end of the 1960s psychedelic era. Critic-at-large John Powers has a review.
With a national health-care conversation in high gear, linguist Geoff Nunberg notes that "government" (as in "government-run plan") wasn't always such a dirty word. From "G-men" to "government bureaucrats," on this edition of Fresh Air.
Charles Sennott has been reporting on the Taliban since 1995. He recently returned to Afghanistan and Pakistan, where he revisited the people and places he got to know through his reporting.
Cult director John Waters discusses his friendship with Manson family member and convicted murderer Leslie Van Houten, who he believes should be released on parole.
