Society & Culture

Growing up as a first-generation Chinese-American in Northern California, novelist Amy Tan found herself pulled by two different notions of fate: Her mother was guided by beliefs in curses and luck, while her father, a Baptist minister, was guided by Christian faith.

Baumbach's new film mixes comedy with deep emotional pain. It revolves around three adult siblings whose father is a self-absorbed sculptor. Baumbach's previous films include The Squid and the Whale.

The 24-year-old Polley has acted professionally since the age of 6. She starred in the Atom Egoyan films Exotica and The Sweet Hereafter. She's currently starring in the film My Life Without Me, based on a story by Nanci Kincaid called Pretending the Bed is a Raft. It's about a young, working single mother who learns she's going to die but keeps it a secret. The changes she makes to her life give her a new sense of liberation. Polley also will appear in the upcoming film The I Inside and a remake of the cult horror film Dawn of the Dead.

If you're into counterculture kitsch, you might want to check out the nostalgia-themed resort hotel at Walt Disney World in Florida. It features a "Hippy Dippy" swimming pool, surrounded by flower-shaped water jets, peace signs and giant letters that spell out "Peace, Man," "Out of Sight" and "Can You Dig It?"

Author David Mendelsohn says having his 81-year-old father in the college seminar he was teaching on Homer's Odyssey led to an unexpected bonding.

The creator of Playboy magazine died Wed, September 27, we listen back to an excerpt of our 1999 interview with him.

"The Vietnam War" the latest documentary series by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, examines the story of the war from multiple perspectives.

Danielle Allen's memoir centers on her cousin Michael, who was sentenced to a long prison term for carjacking when he was 15. Three years after his release, he was found shot to death in a parked car.

Nearly 30 years ago, Hersch was among the first jazz musicians to come out as both gay and HIV positive. His memoir looks back on that time, as well as the time he spent in a medically induced coma.

During Donald Trump's campaign for president, there were times at his rallies when he singled out one reporter for criticism. Katy Tur, who covered the Trump campaign for NBC News and MSNBC, remembers those instances vividly.

Adlon's FX series is based on her own experience raising three girls as a single mom. Her daughters are very much a part of the show, she says. Originally broadcast Sept. 6, 2016.

Director Mike White on writing and directing his new film about a 47 year old man who feels he's not as successful as his former college peers.

Wainwright has written remarkable songs about family, and how we hurt and heal each other. Now he details his life as a husband, father, son, philanderer and musician in the memoir Liner Notes.

Mark Pitcavage of the Anti-Defamation League says that the militia movement has created a conspiracy theory about the anti-fascist protesters, saying they're domestic terrorists backed by George Soros

Klausner plays an unsuccessful comic who quips about celebrities in her Hulu series, which recently launched its third season. Originally broadcast Aug. 16, 2016.

Growing up in southwestern Virginia in recent decades, poet Molly McCully Brown often passed by a state institution in Amherst County that was once known as the "Virginia State Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded."

We listen back to a 2008 interview with singer Glen Campbell whose hits included Witchita Lineman, By the Time I Get to Phoenix, and Galveston. He died Tuesday Aug 8 at the age of 81.

New Yorker staff writer Ariel Levy was five months pregnant when she went to Mongolia on assignment. Her doctor had cleared her for travel, and she was excited to pursue one last adventurous story before settling down with an infant.

It's a time-honored tradition for novelists to draw material from their own lives, and author Tom Perrotta is no exception. His 2004 book, Little Children, sprang from his experience as the parent of young kids. Three years later, he published The Abstinence Teacher, which was inspired, in part, by the junior-high and high-school sports his children played at the time.

Maureen Corrigan reviews a new biography of Chester Himes, who published his first novel in the 1940s and was hailed as a worthy member of an elite company of black intellectuals and writers like Ralph Ellison and Richard Wright. Now his literary legacy is largely forgotten. This new biography hopes to change that.