Lincoln, the jazz legend who transformed herself from a supper-club singer into a powerful voice in the civil-rights movement, died Saturday. She was 80. Fresh Air revisits two interviews with the respected performer, actress and songwriter.
Portions of this interview were originally broadcast on March 25, 1986, and June 16, 1996.
Writer Sue Diaz was surprised when her son Roman told her that he was joining the Army. She writes about the emotional roller coaster her family experienced when her son left for war — and how her relationship with Roman changed — in Minefields of the Heart.
The new Showtime series stars Laura Linney as a wife and mother battling cancer. Critic David Bianculli says the leads (Oliver Platt among them) are just fine, but the subsidiary characters could use a second look. Also back for another season on Showtime: Weeds, which makes The Big C look limp by comparison.
Neurobiologist Susan R. Barry was born cross-eyed, and for most of her life, she saw the world in two dimensions, instead of three. But in her late 40s, Barry retrained her brain and her eyes to perceive the world in a new way. She explains how her vision -- and her whole sense of self -- changed in her memoir, Fixing My Gaze.
Mac Rebennack, known as "Dr. John," has been a rock and soul ambassador for his native New Orleans since the late 1960s. Although his public profile has risen and fallen over the years, the spirit of his city is a constant presence on all of his albums. Critic Milo Miles talks about how crusading for wounded New Orleans has given Dr. John a jolt of vitality.
Helen Schulman tells the story of a New York family's fall from grace in This Beautiful Life. Critic Maureen Corrigan says the novel is a parent's nightmare -- a cautionary tale about what happens when hormones meet the Internet.
Everything you wanted to know about bug sex (but didn't bother to ask) is explained in a new book. Insect expert Marlene Auk describes how ants learn, why some crickets don't chirp and how various bugs mate in Sex on Six Legs: Lessons on Life, Love and Language from the Insect World.
Arcade Fire is a Montreal-based band that has, in less than a decade, grown in popularity from obscure indie favorite to mass-appeal group that can fill New York's Madison Square Garden. Critic Ken Tucker says the band's third album, The Suburbs, has the sweep and ambition of a rock opera.
The Vidocq Society is a Philadelphia-based group of criminologists and forensic experts; they gather together once a month to solve cold cases. Writer Michael Capuzzo explains what it was like to shadow the crime-fighters in The Murder Room.
In Crude World, journalist Peter Maass argues that our relentless pursuit of oil has created a host of problems in the world — particularly in the countries that hold the most deposits. He explains why our dependence on the fossil fuel is not without social and environmental costs.
Edgar Wright's adaptation of a cult-favorite comic centers on a regular schmo who fights like a superhero when his new girlfriend's Seven Evil Exes come calling. Critic David Edelstein says the movie has a vintage look all its own -- "part comic-book panel and part arcade video-game screen."
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.
