Society & Culture

The only literary work about punctuation I'm aware of is an odd early story by Anton Chekhov called "The Exclamation Mark." After getting into an argument with a colleague about punctuation, a school inspector named Yefim Perekladin asks his wife what an exclamation point is for. She tells him it signifies delight, indignation, joy and rage. He realizes that in 40 years of writing official reports, he has never had the need to express any of those emotions.

After defying her country's ban on woman drivers, Manal al Sharif was arrested. The outcry by people all over the world led to her release. She tells her story from growing up in Mecca, and adhering to the fundamentalist interpretation of Islam to being a security engineer at Aramco, the Saudi national oil company.

Actor Giancarlo Esposito talks about coming back to play Gus Fring in Better Call Saul, after originating the role in Breaking Bad. . . and how being bi-racial has affected his life and career. He's the son of an white Italian father, and an African-american mother, who was an opera singer.

Author Sheryll Cashin's talks about the Loving v. Virginia ruling, which overturned state laws prohibiting interracial marriage. Cashin grew up the child of civil rights activists in Huntsville, Ala

David Sedaris' new book comes directly from his diaries from 1977-2002 and includes entries about everything from picking fruit and cleaning houses for a living, to going to art school, the life changing broadcast of his Santaland Diaries on Morning Edition, getting sober, and the deaths of his mother and sister.

Aziz Ansari is in the midst of a whirlwind year. In January, the comic hosted Saturday Night Live the day after President Trump's inauguration — an experience he describes as "one of the most watched stand-up sets I'll ever do in my life, if not the most."

Ari Berman, author of Give Us the Ballot, says the new commission will keep alive the idea that voter fraud is rampant — despite the fact that "all the studies show the opposite."

Does it matter when someone gets a quotation wrong? Our linguist Geoff Nunberg considers the question.

Rhiannon Giddens brings her banjo to the studio and sings some songs from her new solo album which includes original songs based on slave narratives.

Jill Soloway — who identifies as genderqueer and prefers the gender neutral pronouns they/them/their— created the Amazon series Transparent based on their own experience as the child of a transgender woman. Now they have a new Amazon series called I Love Dick.

Before she turned to writing, the National Book Award nominee ran away from home and worked as a stripper. Her new collection of personal essays is Somebody with a Little Hammer.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist revisits the lives and deaths of his parents in his new memoir, Between Them. "As much as they loved me, an only child, they loved each other more," he says.

Comic W. Kamau Bell has spent much of his life feeling awkward. A self-described "tall, rangy black dude," Bell was often mistaken for a basketball player growing up — except that serious asthma and allergies meant he spent the bulk of his childhood indoors watching TV.

Emotions like lust and love serve as metaphors for social and political struggles on Lamar's new album. Critic Ken Tucker says the music on DAMN. signals the artist's bold refusal to back down.

Book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews the new memoir by Dani Shapiro; it's her third memoir and it's about marriage. Her first two were best sellers.

In 2017 alone, Merriam-Webster added more than 1,000 words to its dictionary. Noah Webster himself might have struggled to define these new English terms — such as binge-watch, humblebrag, photobomb, NSFW, truther, face-palm and listicle.

Sasheer Zamata has been a cast member of Saturday Night Live since 2014. Now she has new stand up special titled Pizza Mind.

Alec Baldwin has been keeping busy lately. The star of the animated film The Boss Baby has a new memoir out and also keeps popping up on Saturday Night Live to play President Trump.

Growing up, punk rocker Laura Jane Grace always felt conflicted about gender. She tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross that she felt like two "twin souls" were warring inside of her, fighting for control. "I thought that I was quite possibly schizophrenic," she says.

Maureen Corrigan says 'One of the Boys', is a slim, deeply affecting and brutal story, about the fierce power of a father-son relationship.