Places & Travel

Linda Simpson performed in and chronicled the drag scene in the '80s and '90s, taking some 5,000 photos of performers. She calls Tennessee's anti-drag legislation "ridiculous."

The New Yorker recently published Mallon's diary excepts detailing life in Manhattan in the '80s. His new novel, Up With the Sun, is based on the life of a little-known actor who was gay and closeted.

After 20 years away from the screen, actor Ke Huy Quan is back in front of the camera in the new film 'Everything Everywhere All At Once,' and he's getting lots of praise for his performance.

Guardian journalist Shaun Walker talks about Yevgeny Prigozhin, the tough-talking convict-turned-businessman who recruits soldiers from Russian prisons to fight in Ukraine. "It's just so out of the realms of fantasy that this former convict is going to fly around prisons in his helicopter and offer people salvation for fighting for him at the front, and then lead these battalions of prisoners to their almost certain death," He says. "It's so dystopian that it's really hard to believe. But yet it has happened."

From relentless campaigning to snubs and speeches, the Academy Awards have often reflected a cultural conflict zone. Michael Schulman sifts through the controversies in his new book, Oscar Wars.

Bacharach, who died Feb. 8, wrote hits in the '60s and early '70s. We listen to a 1998 interview with Bacharach and Elvis Costello.

Jere Van Dyk has spent years in Afghanistan and Pakistan, where he got to know leaders of the Haqqani network, responsible for many suicide bombings and kidnappings. His new book is Without Borders.

Siddharth Kara talks about how cell phones and electronic vehicles are powered by cobalt mined by workers in slave-like conditions in The Democratic Republic of Congo. Cobalt is an essential component of the rechargeable batteries used in devices and EV's. He has researched modern day slavery and human trafficking for over twenty years.

Imani Perry says the South can be seen as an "origin point" for the way the nation operates. Her book South to America traces the steps of an enslaved ancestor. Originally broadcast Jan. 25, 2022.

British-born Israeli journalist Anshel Pfeffer profiled Netanyahu in his 2018 biography Bibi. He describes Netanyahu, who's served more than 15 years as Israel's prime minister, as a knowledgeable statesman whose interests lie in macroeconomics and geopolitics. But, Pfeffer adds, Netanyahu has a "strange detachment" when it comes to social issues.

Jonathan Escoffery grew up in Miami, the son of Jamaican immigrants. In a world where identity was linked to race, he says it was often confusing to figure out where he fit in.

American Sirens author Kevin Hazzard tells the story Freedom House, a neighborhood nonprofit that, with the help of a pioneering physician, trained some of the nation's first paramedics.

The scenes in the new documentary Harvest Time show footage taken when Young was making the album Harvest. We listen back to two Fresh Air interviews with Young, from 1992 and 2004.

Kumail Nanjiani is starring in the series Welcome to Chippendales, as the founder of the first club to feature male strippers dancing for audiences of women. Nanjiani co-starred in the comedy series Silicon Valley, co-wrote and starred in the film The Big Sick, and was the first South Asian to play a Marvel superhero.

Michael Cecchi-Azzolina talks about what it's like to be a Maitre D' at the fanciest restaurants in New York City. He has worked in the business for three decades telling wealthy diners, celebrities and even the mafia whether or not they can have the table by the window. His memoir is called Your Table is Ready.

Season two of Mike White's Emmy Award Winning HBO series 'The White Lotus' is about wealthy Americans vacationing in a luxurious hotel in Sicily and how they manage to mess up their lives

Infantryman Robert Kotlowitz was one of only three in his platoon to survive an ill-advised attack on the Germans. Robert Williams served with the Tuskegee Airmen. Originally broadcast in '99 and '95.

Film critic Justin Chang reviews the new comic thriller "The Banshees of Inisherin" by writer-director Martin McDonagh and starring Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson.

The former co-anchor of ESPN's SportsCenter faced criticism in 2017 for calling the president a white supremacist. In her memoir, Uphill, she talks about her career and her life growing up in Detroit.

New Yorker writer Evan Osnos talks about the path of Guo Wengui, a billionaire who fled China and insinuated himself into the MAGA inner circle. But who is he really working for?