Jeff Goodell's book Big Coal: The Dirty Secret Behind America's Energy Future, now out in paperback, argues that the U.S. is more dependent than ever on coal. Goodell is a contributing editor at Rolling Stone magazine; he's also the author of Our Story: 77 Hours That Tested Our Friendship and Our Faith, based on the account of nine miners trapped underground.
Pilgrimage is the posthumously issued recording from tenor sax player Michael Brecker, who died earlier this year due to leukemia. The album features jazz greats Herbie Hancock and Pat Metheny.
Food and wine columnist Russ Parsons wrote How to Pick a Peach. He searches for top-quality fruits and vegetables and lists the reasons why supermarket produce is not always the best.
Journalist Laura Rozen discusses the philosophical split within the Bush administration on how to curb nuclear proliferation in Iran. Rozen reports on national security and foreign policy as a senior correspondent for The American Prospect and as a contributor to The Washington Monthly, the National Journal and other publications. She also writes a political blog, War and Piece.
Washington Post correspondent Thomas Ricks — author of the bestseller Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq — talks about his latest trip to that country and the latest strategies the Pentagon is employing there. Ricks, a Pulitzer Prize winner and former Wall Street Journal staffer, is also author of Making the Corps and A Soldier's Duty.
Former Navy petty officer Stephen Benjamin, trained as an Arabic translator, was headed to Iraq when he was dismissed from the Navy under the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy. Benjamin is gay; his supervisors knew he was gay, and most of his peers also knew, and he says he was always accepted as a member of the team. Two other gay Arabic translators were also dismissed.
Fresh Air's rock critic takes a listen to the 21st solo album from the former Beatle.
McCartney, who turned 65 today, launched Memory Almost Full with a free concert in London earlier this month — back when he was 64. It's an occasionally reflective life-and-loves disc that ranges from an upbeat dance-party opener to a farewell-to-love track.
Sometimes it pays to let yourself be manipulated. My first instinct upon seeing Hilma Wolitzer's new novel was to pooh-pooh it as a bald appeal to book clubs across the land.
Louise Arbour, the U.N.'s High Commissioner for Human Rights and onetime chief prosecutor in the Yugoslav and Rwandan tribunals, discusses U.S. policy on detainees in the fight against terrorism.
The zombie comedy Fido offers satire along with splatter; Fresh Air's film critic says it's "the blood wedding of George Romero and SCTV, and it's a treat for those who don't mind gnawed-off limbs with their hijinks." It's set in a '50s-flavored, Fiestaware-colored retro society, which can be a bit tiresome, because the decade's father-knows-best archetypes have been picked clean. Still, Edelstein says, "director and co-writer Andrew Currie treats his characters with so much affection that even the stereotypes have a fresh life."
Jemaine Clement and Bret McKenzie, aka the folk-parody band Flight of the Conchords, hail from New Zealand and were named best alternative-comedy act at the 2005 U.S. Comedy Arts Festival. Now they're starring in an HBO series called, yes, Flight of the Conchords — which is, yes, about two transplanted New Zealanders living in New York City's Lower East side. It launches Sunday.
An appeals court ruled recently that the FCC couldn't fine the Fox network for indecency for broadcasting a "fleeting expletive" during an awards show. What does the ruling mean — and what qualifies as a "fleeting expletive" these days, anyway?
Josh Rushing was a Marine Corps media liaison at Central Command, or Centcom, in the early days of the Iraq war. His job was to represent the Marines to the worldwide media covering the war in Iraq, including the Arab TV network Al-Jazeera, and he was featured in the documentary Control Room. After retiring from the Marines he took a job as a correspondent with Al-Jazeera, reporting from Washington D.C. His new memoir is Mission Al Jazeera: Build a Bridge, Seek the Truth, Change the World.
Award-winning photographer Ashley Gilbertson has spent much of the past five years in Iraq, taking incredible photographs for The New York Times and other publications. Born in 1978, Gilbertson has captured some of the world's most dangerous places on camera. A book of his work, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot: A Photographer's Chronicle of the Iraq War, will be published this fall.
Augustus Richard Norton, a Boston University professor of international relations and anthropology, has written about Lebanon for 25 years; he's a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and an expert on Shiite political movements, including Hezbollah. His new book is Hezbollah: A Short History.
Ambassador Dennis Ross talks about his role as chief Middle East peace negotiator during the Clinton and George H.W. Bush administrations. His new book is Statecraft: And How to Restore America's Standing in the World.
Country music singer Miranda Lambert returns with a second album, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. Her debut album, Kerosene, went platinum in 2005 and earned her a Grammy nomination.
A concert and conversation with Los Straitjackets, the Nashville-based indie-rock band that's made a name performing surf-rock classics from behind Mexican wrestling masks.
The group's latest album, Rock en Espanol, Vol. 1, features Spanish language versions of rock 'n' roll hits from the 1960s.
Tracks include "De Dia y de Noche" ("All Day and All Night"), popularized by the Kinks, "La Hiedra Venenosa" ("Poison Ivy"), made famous by the Coasters, and many more.
The Sopranos' final episode aired last night on HBO. Spoiler alert: Critic David Bianculli's review tells us how the episode, and the series, concludes.
George Clooney and the gang return to Vegas and to the casino caper for this third installment in Steven Soderbergh's hit franchise.
While Ocean's Twelve was all over the place, this one's as elegant and streamlined as hero Danny Ocean. As the plotting gets knottier, Soderbergh's technique gets more fluid — the editing jazzier, the colors more luscious, the whip-pans more whiz-bang.
