Arts & Life

Books
Arts

4 Lives In Parallel Run Through Ambitious '4 3 2 1'

11:21am February 01, 2017

by Michael Schaub

Paul Auster's new novel is a departure for the author — 880 pages of flowing prose about four versions of one character, living four mostly-parallel lives. It's sometimes confusing, but never boring.

Arts

Ad For Nice Living: Discover Trees, Now With Chlorophyll

4:28pm January 31, 2017

We hear one of the five selected listener suggestions for our updated Commercials for Nicer Living project: trees.

Arts

Jim Jarmusch On Iggy Pop, Hip-Hop And Finding Poetry In Mundane Things

1:49pm January 31, 2017

Jarmusch's new movie, which was inspired by William Carlos Williams' epic poem Paterson, is about a bus driver who writes poetry. Jarmusch also made a documentary about Iggy and the Stooges.

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An exhibition at The Getty Center in Los Angeles features some 200 works of news-inspired art, dating back to the 1960s. Above, The Air Power of the World from Masao Mochizuki's 1976 "Television" series.

Arts

'Breaking News' Artists Use Mass Media As Their Medium

1:13pm January 31, 2017

by Susan Stamberg

An exhibition in Los Angeles features some 200 works of news-inspired art, dating back to the 1960s. Many of the images are disturbing; "Art is more than a pretty picture," says curator Arpad Kovacs.

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Worshipful female followers fought for the Mad Monk's leftover bread crusts. His infamous sweet tooth led to his death. Or did it? A century later, rumors about Grigori Rasputin, Russia's czarina whisperer, still swirl.

Fact Or Fiction? Even When It Comes To Food, It's Hard To Tell With Rasputin

11:55am January 31, 2017

by Nina Martyris

Worshipful female followers fought for the Mad Monk's leftover bread crusts. His infamous sweet tooth led to his death. Or did it? A century later, rumors about Russia's czarina whisperer still swirl.

Books
Arts

'Six Wakes' Is A Nerve-Tingling Interstellar Murder Mystery

11:30am January 31, 2017

by Jason Heller

In Mur Lafferty's latest, six crewmembers wake up to horror on a malfunctioning spaceship — the artificial gravity is gone, and blood floats in the air. It's up to them to find out what happened.

Rana (Taraneh Alidoosti) and Emad's (Shahab Hosseini) marriage is shattered in A Separation.

Attention Must Be Paid To What 'The Salesman' Is Selling

4:57pm January 30, 2017

by Bob Mondello

A review of The Salesman, an Iranian film about a couple whose home life becomes unsettled while they're starring together in a production of Death of a Salesman.

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Books
Arts

'Perfect Little World' Imagines Family Drama Inside A Utopian Compound

3:26pm January 30, 2017

by Maureen Corrigan

Kevin Wilson's new novel is set on a state-of-the-art commune where children don't know who their biological parents are. Critic Maureen Corrigan says the book lives up to its title.

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A photo of a patient receiving care in the hospital.

Doctor Considers The Pitfalls Of Extending Life And Prolonging Death

2:28pm January 30, 2017

In Modern Death, Dr. Haider Warraich says a slow dying process, during which patients move in and out of hospitals or nursing homes, is a "very recent development in our history as a species."

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This Is How It Always Is by Laurie Frankel.

Books
Arts

'This Is How It Always Is' Was Inspired By Its Author's Transgender Child

9:49am January 30, 2017

by NPR Staff

Still, Laurie Frankel says, her book is fiction. "The nice thing about my life is that it's pretty boring, which is really how you want your life to be — but not how you want your novel to be."

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