Arts & Life

Mothers, Fathers, and Others: Essays by Siri Hustvedt

Books
Arts

'Mothers, Fathers, and Others' addresses the realities of motherhood

11:43am December 20, 2021

by Sharmila Mukherjee

Siri Hustvedt's essays bring into focus the profound contradictions of motherhood — often eclipsed by the cultural idealization of mothers as the model of self-sacrificing nurturance.

Afghan music students, teachers and their families disembark from their flight to Lisbon on Dec. 13. The group of more than 270 evacuees had been staying in Doha, awaiting resettlement in Portugal.

Afghan music students escaped the Taliban and are beginning their new lives abroad

11:21am December 20, 2021

Students and faculty with the Afghanistan National Institute of Music flew last week from Doha to Lisbon, where they will start their new lives and reconstitute their celebrated academy in exile.

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Books
Arts

In 'Sea State,' life gets rocky when a journalist gets involved with her subject

10:36am December 20, 2021

by Maureen Corrigan

Tabitha Lasley spent six months in Aberdeen, Scotland, interviewing men who work on offshore oil rigs. Along the way, she had an all-consuming affair with one of the very first men she interviewed.

Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem star in Being the Ricardos.

Arts

'Being the Ricardos' takes a legendary comedienne seriously, with mixed results

7:00am December 20, 2021

by Aisha Harris

Aaron Sorkin's take on the scandals and controversies of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz is Sorkin-y to a fault. But Nicole Kidman, Javier Bardem, and the rest of the cast keep things interesting.

In Sing 2, a troupe of singing animals take a big gamble on hitting it big in a Vegas-like resort.

Scarlett Johansson, Tori Kelly and Bono gamble big for superstardom in 'Sing 2'

4:58pm December 19, 2021

by Mandalit del Barco

In a sequel to the 2016 hit animated film, koala-bear mogul Buster Moon and his talented troupe try to land a dream booking, by promising to enlist a reclusive superstar.

'Saturday Night Live' ditches audience, musical performances amid omicron fears

2:30pm December 19, 2021

by Joe Hernandez

The highly transmissible variant has again upended life in the U.S., as officials warn of a coming spike in cases and people race to get booster shots and coronavirus tests during the winter holidays.

Children's artist Jazzy Ash wraps up a busy year with new Christmas songs

8:25am December 19, 2021

by Mandalit del Barco

Ashli St. Armant plays funky New Orleans-style fare for kids with her band, Jazzy Ash and the Leaping Lizards, and spins mysterious tales in her Viva Durant audiobook series.

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Collage of gifts, a syringe full of vaccine, a surgical mask, and a calendar set to December, surrounded in a frame made of a hodgepodge of letters and mail

We answered your questions on safety, loneliness and anxiety during the holidays

7:02pm December 18, 2021

We asked for your questions on navigating the holiday blues. Clinical psychologist Andrea Bonior guides us through some rough patches involving family, money, loneliness and safety.

Arts

Big brands set sights on virtual fashion

5:16pm December 18, 2021

NPR's Sacha Pfeiffer speaks to Imran Amed, fashion writer and CEO of The Business of Fashion, about the future of the fashion industry in a virtual world.

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(Clockwise) It Takes Two, Resident Evil 8: Village, Life is Strange: True Colors, Valheim and Inscryption

Arts

The top five video games of 2021 selected by the NPR staff

4:44pm December 18, 2021

Our picks for best new games run from the humorous to the horrific (sometimes, both at once!), from tight single-player stories to sprawling online sandboxes.