While Harry Potter has grown to become a huge a marketing event, the book series is still, at its heart, a literary event. Critic-at-large John Powers considers kids today lucky to have that experience. He compares it to his experiences purchasing and reading the Hardy Boys mysteries as a child.
The new documentary Grizzly Man by German filmmaker Werner Herzog tells the story of Timothy Treadwell, who lived for 13 years -- and died -- among the bears in Alaska. Treadwell and his girlfriend were found dead in October 2003, killed by the animals he had grown to love so much.
TV critic David Bianculli reviews Over There, the new Stephen Bochco series about a U.S. Army unit arriving in Iraq for its first tour of duty. It premieres Wednesday night on the FX network.
Edward Bunker died Tuesday at age 71 of complications from diabetes. He went to San Quentin prison at age 17 and was their youngest inmate. While incarcerated, Bunker wrote the crime fiction classic No Beast So Fierce. He also acted in more than 20 films, including Reservoir Dogs. This story was originally broadcast on July 12, 1993.
Steven Bochco is co-creator and executive producer of Over There, the new FX drama about U.S. soldiers in Iraq. Bochco has won 10 Emmy awards for creating and producing Hill Street Blues, L.A. Law and NYPD Blue.
In his new book Offshore: The Dark Side of the Global Economy, reporter Brittain-Catlin delves into the shadowy world of offshore banking. He estimates that one-third of the world's wealth — or $7 trillion — is held in farflung locales such as the Cayman Islands.
Author and actor Martin Moran's new memoir is The Tricky Part: One Boy's Fall from Trespass into Grace. As a boy, he was sexually abused by a male counselor at a Catholic boys' camp. Nearly 30 years later, Moran went to see the man again at a convalescent home.
In his new book The Elements of Murder: A History of Poison, chemist John Emsley chronicles cases of accidental and intentional use of lethal substances throughout the ages. Some say Beethoven and Mozart were poisoned to death.
Rock historian Ed Ward tells us about Philadelphia's Cameo and Parkway record labels. From the late 1950s to the late-'60s, their hits included "The Twist," "South Street" and "Bristol Stomp." ABKCO Records has just released a Cameo-Parkway four-CD retrospective.
A Memphis pimp with a midlife crisis tries to make it as a rapper in Hustle & Flow, a film featuring the prodigious acting talents of Terrence Howard. He spent nearly two years researching a role that he initially did not want to accept.
Rock critic Ken Tucker gives the band Dr. Dog a listen. The five-piece rock band from the suburbs of Philadelphia has cut three albums in a home studio. The latest is Easy Beat.
Helen Thomas has been covering the White House for 62 years. She gives us an inside look at the White House Press Room and comments on the recent scandals surrounding the Valerie Plame name leak and the possible involvement of White House deputy chief of staff Karl Rove.
Boston Herald sports columnist Howard Bryant is author of Juicing the Game. Baseball in the '90s — with greater profit and more record breakers than ever — has come to be known as "The Juiced Era." But the dark side has been the use of performance-enhancing drugs such as steroids.
Steven Johnson, author of Everything Bad Is Good for You, aruges that rather than turning our brains to mush, entertainment options like video games are so complex that our brains rise to the challenge.
Cass Sunstein, the Karl N. Llewellyn Distinguished Service Professor of Jurisprudence at the University of Chicago Law School, comments on Tuesday night's Supreme Court nomination of John G. Roberts. Early in his career, Sunstein clerked for Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall.
Book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews the Walt Whitman-inspired, time-traveling novel Specimen Days by Michael Cunningham. He is also author of the best-seller The Hours.
Rock critic Ken Tucker reviews Magic Hollow, a new four-CD retrospective of the band The Beau Brummels, a '60s British Invasion-era pop group from California. Their biggest -- and only top 10 -- hit was "Laugh, Laugh."
Journalist Karl Fleming's new book is Son of the Rough South: An Uncivil Memoir. As a civil rights reporter for Newsweek in the 1960s, he wrote about major events such as the Birmingham church bombing, the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., and the murders of three civil rights workers in Philadelphia, Miss. While at the 1966 riots in the Watts section of Los Angeles, Fleming was severely beaten.
John Leguizamo, who got his start as a stand-up comedian, stars in the new Spanish-language film Cronicas. He plays a tabloid reporter from Miami who travels to Ecuador to track down a serial killer.
