Arts & Life

Critic David Bianculli says both shows have uncanny parallels to today's world. Homeland's final season has been truly unnerving, while Penny Dreadful's new season centers on a supernatural villain.

Actual crimes are scary and disturbing, but critic John Powers finds crime stories comforting. He recommends two shows he's been binge-watching during the pandemic.

Vietnamese author Nguyen Phan Que Mai grew up amid the devastation of war. Her memories of that time, and her family's experiences, became the inspiration for her new novel, The Mountains Sing.

Boylan came out as trans when she was in her 40s. She describes her new book, Good Boy, as a "memoir of masculinity, kind of told the way an expatriate might speak of the country of their birth."

How can grief become an instrument of comfort? Morning Edition wants to hear from those whose lives have been affected by COVID-19 — in the form of a poem.

The show, adapted from Philip Roth's novel, imagines a world in which aviator Charles Lindbergh defeated Franklin D. Roosevelt in the race for the presidency, moving the country toward fascism.