Education

A bomb explodes in the campus office next door, and Lee, a math professor, becomes the primary suspect. Is he being targeted for revenge by someone in his past? Fresh Air book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews A Person of Interest, a new novel by Susan Choi.

David Simon, creator and executive producer of HBO's series The Wire, joins Fresh Air to talk about his career and the genesis of the show. Simon writes many of the episodes — and some story lines come from his former job as a police reporter for the Baltimore Sun.

Fresh Air book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews Relentless Pursuit: A Year in the Trenches With Teach for America, by Donna Foote.

In the Japanese anime series Death Note, high school student Light Yagami is in possession of a super-powered notebook that allows him to kill anyone, simply by writing down the victim's name. Critic-at-large John Powers offers a commentary.

Fresh Air's film critic reviews Jonathan Levine's film — a comedy, starring Ben Kingsley and Josh Peck, about a drug dealer, his shrink and the difficulty they both have growing up.

Twitchy undertaker, cubicle fiend, sassy convenience-store clerk — Rainn Wilson has long gravitated toward eccentric characters. But is The Office actor attempting the leap to sex symbol through his titular role in The Rocker? Given the hair-metal coif and the still-goofy humor, probably not.

Film critic David Edelstein reviews the new documentary American Teen. Directed by Nanette Burnstein, the film follows a group of seniors at a high school in Warsaw, Indiana.

Fans of NBC's Friday Night Lights might want to look into DirecTV; the show, about a small Texas town and its high-school football team, begins its third season exclusively on DirecTV's "The 101," and won't hit broadcast TV until 2009. David Bianculli has a review.

Initially known for his role on the short-lived but critically acclaimed TV series Freaks and Geeks, the actor stars alongside Sean Penn in Gus Van Sant's newest film.

After appearing in supporting roles in more than 50 films, actor Richard Jenkins takes the lead in The Visitor, Tom McCarthy's film about a solitary economics professor whose world opens up when he discovers an apartment he rented in New York is already occupied.

Ryan Murphy, creator of the plastic surgery series Nip/Tuck, talks about his experiences singing in a choir and what inspired him to create the new Fox comedy series Glee.

Richard Russo turns a satiric eye toward matrimony and middle age in his new novel, That Old Cape Magic. Book critic Maureen Corrigan calls the book a "glistening ... chambered nautilus of a novel."

Maureen Corrigan reviews Lorrie Moore's most recent novel.

The winner of the inaugural Queer Palm at Cannes, Gregg Araki's Kaboom is a freewheeling apocalyptic comedy centered around a sexually curious college freshman. Critic David Edelstein says the exhilarating movie is "part Blake Edwards, part David Lynch."

In his new book, Pam, fiction writer Mat Johnson plays with the premise of Edgar Allan Poe's only novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket. Poe's novel was a "master text of anxious white fright," says Maureen Corrigan, and Johnson's clever book shines new light on the material.

Former Assistant Secretary of Education Diane Ravitch explains why she was once an early advocate of No Child Left Behind, school vouchers and charter schools — and what changed her mind.

The debate over school reform is often contentious — and charter schools are often a key part of that debate. Educational consultant Andrew Rotherham explains why he supports strategies that will redesign American public education with the help of charter schools and teacher accountability.

Rachel DeWoskin's novel follows a gutsy 16-year-old girl navigating her way at a new performing arts high school. The book is a distinctive addition to the already packed library of coming-of-age stories.

The for-profit college industry has grown substantially in the past decade by targeting underprivileged students who qualify for federal loans, investigative journalist Daniel Golden says. But he says many of these students aren't getting what they hoped for out of college.