This week, the discussion takes a decidedly domestic turn as Linda Holmes, Glen Weldon, Kat Chow and Barrie Hardymon talk real estate shows, home renovation shows, and cooking shows.
Commonwealth is actually Patchett's seventh novel, but it draws heavily on her own family experience, and she compares it to the classic thinly-veiled autobiography often written by young authors.
As the extent of the 9/11 attacks became known, 38 planes were rerouted to Gander, Newfoundland. More than 6,000 passengers and crew were taken in by families there. Their story is the subject of a new musical called, Come From Away, which runs at Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C., in September and October before heading to Broadway.
When Pura Belpré became a librarian in 1921, she couldn't find Spanish language books for kids — so she wrote them herself. Belpré would go on to become a champion of bilingual library programs.
In a British film based on an award-winning 2011 stage musical, a suburban community is riven by paranoia in the wake of the murder of five sex workers.
When the BBC's Matthew Anderson tweeted this week the rules the English language has for the order in which adjectives should appear before a noun, he was retweeted 47,000 times. He says foreigners struggle with this concept, but native speakers do it naturally. The quote comes from a book called, The Elements of Eloquence: How to Turn the Perfect English Phrase, by Mark Forsyth.
A failing marriage and a catastrophic earthquake take center stage in Safran Foer's new novel. Critic Maureen Corrigan calls Here I Am a profound work about the claims of history, identity and family.
Today, a TV show's style doesn't tell you as much as it used to. A traditional network workplace sitcom slyly breaks with tradition, and an edgy cable sitcom hides a beating human heart.