In her new book, Animals Make Us Human, Temple Grandin examines common notions of animal happiness and concludes that dogs, cats, horses, cows and zoo animals — among other creatures — possess an emotional system akin to that of humans.
All You Need Is Love, Tony Palmer's 17-part history of popular music, distilled more than 1,000 hours of footage into just under 15 hours of indelible TV. Now it's been released as a 5-DVD set. Fresh Air's rock historian has a review.
A pioneering political leader in the fight against apartheid, for 13 years Suzman was the sole representative in South Africa's all-white Parliament to reject race discrimination. She died Thursday at 91.
Singer Michael, guitarist Peter Buck and bassist Mike Mills came together in Athens, Ga., in 1980 to form the group R.E.M. This year, the band released Accelerate, its 14th album.
Hearts of Space began as a late night radio show out of San Francisco in 1973. Ten years later, it went national. The show has issued a series of albums to celebrate its 25th anniversary.
Early in January, the American Dialect Society will meet in San Francisco to vote for 2008's Word of the Year. Several dictionaries have already made their own selections. After looking over the field, Fresh Air's resident linguist has a candidate, too.
The year in television started with a bust — or to be more precise, a writer's strike — but Fresh Air's TV critic says there were plenty of TiVo-worthy programs in 2008. Prominent among them: AMC's Mad Men.
Filmmaker Ari Folman was a 19-year-old Israeli soldier serving in Beirut at the time of the 1982 massacre of Palestinian refuges. Though he has no memory of the time, he revisits the mission in his new film, Waltz With Bashir, a surreal, animated documentary of the terror.
The top movies of 2008 — and the larger cultural trends reflected in those films. Fresh Air movie critic David Edelstein talks with Terry Gross about his Ten Best List for 2008.
In his new book Remix, law professor Lawrence Lessig explores the changing landscape of intellectual property in the digital age — and argues that antiquated copyright laws should be updated.
American composer Elliott Carter celebrates his 100th birthday this month, and three new CDs have been released in honor of the occasion. Fresh Air's classical music critic has a review.
The Wrestler is predictable, corny and heavy-handed, says critic David Edelstein, but with Mickey Rourke acting his heart out, the sheer adrenaline-pumping violence of the film gets into your bloodstream.
Composer Erran Baron Cohen's latest CD offers a new take on traditional sounds. He talks about the album — and about collaborating with his brother Sacha Baron Cohen on the movie Borat.
You'd have to be dedicated to your work to set yourself aflame for "research purposes" — but author Kevin Conley did just that. His new book catalogs his four years spent following Hollywood stuntmen.
You know you have a terrific book in your hands when you encounter language or elegantly presented research that startles you into fresh awareness; you know it when the atmosphere of a novel doesn't leave you for days, or years.
Bioethicist Arthur Caplan discusses the health care challenges facing the Obama administration. A professor of Bioethics at The University of Pennsylvania, Caplan was recently named one of the ten most influential people in science by Discover Magazine.
Food historian Anne Mendelson examines how varieties of animal milk have been processed and consumed since antiquity in her new book, Milk: The Surprising Story of Milk through the Ages.
