This Hollywood memoir is an expertly mixed cocktail of history and family drama
Matthew Specktor grew up the son of a famous Hollywood agent. In The Golden Hour he serves up family saga, cultural criticism, fictionalized biography, history and lament for a vanishing world.
Finishing 'Sunday In The Park': Behind-The-Scenes Stories Of Working With Sondheim
James Lapine worked with Stephen Sondheim on Sunday in the Park with George, Into the Woods and Passion. In Putting it Together, he draws on interviews with Sondheim and members of the cast and crew.
Tina Turner Musical Writer Takes On The 'Black Superwoman Myth'
Katori Hall didn't want to gloss over Turner's life in the Tony-nominated musical Tina. Instead, she says, it was important to be "brutally honest" about the pain and trauma Turner has survived.
'Afterparties' Is A Bittersweet Triumph For A Fresh Voice Silenced Too Soon
Anthony Veasna So's posthumously published short story collection offers a smart, compassionate take on the push-pull of growing up first-generation Cambodian American.
Listen Back To A 1993 Interview With The Late Civil Rights Pioneer Bob Moses
In the 1960s, Moses led efforts to organize and register Black residents to vote in Mississippi and brought national attention to the state's entrenched white supremacy. Moses died Sunday at age 86.
1963 Novel 'The Stone Face' Has New Edition — And It Couldn't Be More Timely
William Gardner Smith wrote the story of a Black writer who, like Smith himself, moved to Paris to pursue a freedom he couldn't find in America. New York Review Books is releasing a new edition.
Acting Is 'Problem Solving,' Says Courtney B. Vance
Vance played attorney Johnnie Cochran in The People v. O.J. Simpson. Now he takes to the pulpit as Aretha Franklin's father, Rev. C.L Franklin, in Genius: Aretha. Originally broadcast April 21, 2021.
COVID Era Produces A New Crop Of Solo Records From Jazz Instrumentalists
J.D. Allen's Queen City and Jon Irabagon's Bird With Streams are two very different new albums by outstanding tenor saxophonists.
Leaks Reveal Spyware Meant To Track Criminals Targeted Activists Instead
Washington Post reporter Craig Timberg explains how military-grade spyware licensed to governments and police departments has infiltrated the iPhones of journalists, activists and others.
'Moonlight' Writer Tarell Alvin McCraney On His TV Series 'David Makes Man'
McCraney's script was adapted into the Oscar-winning film. David Makes Man, now in season 2, begins with a Miami boy whose mother struggles with addiction, and has echoes of McCraney's own childhood.