Arts

Books
Arts

Family Bonds Are Never Bland In 'The Past'

10:30am January 16, 2016

by NPR Staff

In her latest novel, The Past, Tessa Hadley focuses on four siblings spending one last holiday at a soon-to-be-sold summer home. Tensions simmer, secrets break out of storage — but love remains.

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Looking At Oscar Nominee List As A Symptom Of Hollywood's Racial Bias

8:27am January 16, 2016

For the second year in a row, the Oscar nominees for acting categories are decidedly — white. NPR's Scott Simon speaks with film critic and interviewer Bobby Rivers about the pallid list.

In The Glory of the World, 17 actors, all men, mark author and Catholic monk Thomas Merton's 100th birthday.

Arts

'Glory Of The World' Is More Wacky Birthday Party Than Traditional Play

8:13am January 16, 2016

by Jeff Lunden

The play celebrates Catholic monk Thomas Merton's 100th birthday. But it isn't really about Merton — it's about human complexity, and at times the action resembles the film Animal House.

Books
Arts

'Hunters' Is A Dark, Elegant Tale Of East And West

7:00am January 16, 2016

by Nishant Dahiya

Lawrence Osborne's well-structured new novel follows a group of Western expats in Cambodia, all hunting for something nebulous — money, happiness, or even just an edge up on everyone else.

Arts

Here Are The New TV Shows You Should Watch This Year

6:24pm January 15, 2016

by Eric Deggans

NPR reviews some of the new shows coming to network and cable television over the coming weeks.

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Arts

In 'That Dragon, Cancer,' 'Unshakeable Empathy Gives Game Life'

6:24pm January 15, 2016

A new computer game explores the real life experience of a married couple losing their young son to cancer. Chris Suellentrop and J.J. Sutherland of the podcast "Shall We Play a Game" have a review.

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Arts

Oscars Still So White: Academy Nominates Nearly All White Actors, Again

6:10pm January 15, 2016

For the second year in a row, no non-white actor was among the 20 acting nominations for the Academy Awards.

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Dawn Anahid MacKeen's grandfather, Stepan Miskjian (left), is pictured with friends around 1910, just a few years before the Armenian genocide.

Long After Armenian Genocide, Retracing A Grandfather's Steps To Survival

4:23pm January 15, 2016

by NPR Staff

For The Hundred-Year Walk, author Dawn Anahid MacKeen visited the sites of her grandfather's escape. Like him, she says she found a haven in Raqqa, Syria, a city currently controlled by ISIS.

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The Cedid atlas was "the first Muslim-published world atlas based on European geographic knowledge and cartographic methods," the Library of Congress writes. The National Library of Norway just discovered a previously unknown copy in their collection, aft

Norway's National Library Discovers Rare Atlas — With A Little Help From Reddit

4:19pm January 15, 2016

by Camila Domonoske

The Cedid was one of the first printed atlases from the Muslim world. There were 14 known copies in existence — until a Norwegian reference librarian with a fondness for /r/MapPorn noticed something.

'Fiddler' Songwriters Discuss Putting Themselves In The 'Soul Of The Characters'

2:07pm January 15, 2016

Together Sheldon Harnick and the late Jerry Bock wrote the songs for the Broadway show Fiddler on the Roof. Both men spoke to Fresh Air in 2004; Harnick spoke to Fresh Air again in 2014.

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