Discussions of global warming and climate change often center around anecdote and cyclical analysis. Scientist Tim Flannery seeks to clarify current — and future — conditions in The Weather Makers: How Man is Changing the Climate and What it Means for Life on Earth.
Sidney Bechet played soprano saxophone in the early decades of jazz, before John Coltrane popularized the instrument. A new anthology, Mosaic Select: Sidney Bechet, offers listeners a chance to hear Bechet's music, transferred and restored from rare recordings from 1923 to 1947.
Nixon adviser Kevin Phillips' book The Emerging Republican Majority was hailed as a visionary work of political analysis. But in American Theocracy, he argues that the Republican Party — and the country — is headed for disaster.
Danielle Trussoni's just-published memoir is Falling Through the Earth. In the book, Trussoni explores the damaging legacy of her father's military service in Vietnam. Book critic Maureen Corrigan says the memoir is also an unusual testament to the father-daughter bond.
Peter Dinklage plays a defense attorney in the new Sidney Lumet-directed film Find Me Guilty, starring Vin Diesel as a member of the Lucchese crime family who represents himself on trial. Dinklage, a person of short stature, is perhaps best known for his award-winning film The Station Agent.
Singer, musician and folklorist Mick Moloney's new album, McNally's Row of Flats, centers on theater songs by an Irish songwriting team from the late 1800s. In those days, Vaudeville and minstrelsy were giving way to American Musical Theater in New York City.
The music of Frank Loesser has been celebrated and extended by his wife, Jo Sullivan Loesser, since his death in 1969. But her musical relationship with him began earlier, as she starred in the original production of Loesser's The Most Happy Fella.
V for Vendetta stars Natalie Portman as Evey, a wallflower who teams up with a superhero to resist an oppressive futuristic government. The movie's producers include the Wachowski brothers, of The Matrix fame.
The girl group Reparata and the Delrons worked its forward-looking magic on songs like "Captain Of Your Ship," "Boys and Girls," "Shoes," and "Whenever a Teenager Cries." The band became far more popular overseas than in America, however.
A mother who gave birth to a severely handicapped child has sued her obstetrician for not providing data that would have allowed her to abort the fetus. Elizabeth Weil wrote about the case in The New York Times Magazine.
The new film Thank You for Smoking follows a fictional American tobacco lobbyist as he defends the rights of smokers with double-talk and snappy irony. The satire is based on the novel of the same name by Christopher Buckley.
When Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast, it also disrupted the education of thousands of students. While many schools remain closed, Benjamin Franklin High School is one of the few operating charter schools in New Orleans. We talk with two teachers.
Louisiana State medical examiner Louis Cataldie was the coroner for the East Baton Rouge Parish in Louisiana from 1998 to 2003. When Hurricane Katrina hit, Dr. Cataldie helped to evacuate patients and set up field hospitals. He also aided the injured and investigated deaths.
The new CD from the Mary Lou Williams Collective is Zodiac Suite: Revisited. The trio, created by pianist Geri Allen, plays the tunes of Mary Lou Williams.
The latest project from playwright David Mamet teams him up with Sean Ryan, who created the FX series The Shield. The pair's new show is The Unit, about a covert military unit.
Drummer Paul Motian has spent more than 50 years in music, working with jazz luminaries like Bill Evans and Thelonious Monk. At 75, he has a new CD of bebop jazz: Garden of Eden, featuring his own band.
Echoing music from the 1950s and '60s, Pay the Devil is the new album from Van Morrison. The album has Morrison reprising songs made famous by Hank Williams, Webb Pierce and Connie Smith.
The new season of The Sopranos opens on Sunday, bringing the world of Tony and Carmela, Christopher and Paulie Walnuts back to dens around the country. The show's last previous episode aired in the summer of 2004.
