While writing his new book, historian Eric Foner relied on a recently discovered record of slaves' escapes. He says the documents paint a "revealing picture" of life on the Underground Railroad.
The movie is based on neuroscientist Lisa Genova's novel about a linguistics professor with early-onset Alzheimer's disease. While Moore is fascinating, the rest of the characters are half-formed.
When Maajid Nawaz was 16 he joined a radical Islamist group. After four years in prison in Egypt, he decided to leave it. "I'm very, very lucky to have been able to get through it," he says.
The Comedy Central show is about single 20-somethings who sit around and make each other laugh. Stars Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer poke fun at New Yorker's "sick, masochistic romance" with the city.
Stone wrote eight novels, including Dog Soldiers, and a memoir. He died Saturday at the age of 77. In 1986 and 2007, Stone talked with Terry Gross about, among other things, writing and his childhood.
If the story fell apart after 12 years of filming, it would have been a "real drag," says Patricia Arqette, and a "colossal waste of time," says Ethan Hawke. Instead, it won three Golden Globes.
The new comedy series on FXX is a cross between an early Woody Allen comedy and a very edgy late-night comedy sketch. It's part literal, part impressionistic -- even surrealist -- and very different.
David Adam has had obsessive-compulsive disorder for 20 years. In The Man Who Couldn't Stop, he chronicles his experiences -- and how medical understanding and treatment of OCD have changed over time.
The film about Martin Luther King's marches for voting rights is being accused of alleged historical inaccuracies. Critic David Edelstein says that's "not entirely" fair, and it's still a great movie.
Ava DuVernay's new film dramatizes a turning point in civil rights history. She says she wanted to "elevate [Selma] from a page in your history book and really just get ... into your DNA."
The show, in its fourth season, was created by David Crane, who worked with LeBlanc on Friends. TV critic David Bianculli says its brand of satire is particularly timely and laugh-out-loud funny.
The New York Times' Ernesto Londono wrote editorials urging Obama to end the embargo. He tells of the changes he saw when he visited Cuba last month and how he sees the new relationship evolving.
Horace Tapscott led a big band in 1969, but his debut was for a quintet drawn from its ranks. Fresh Air jazz critic Kevin Whitehead reviews a reissue of The Giant is Awakened.
In his new collection of short stories and a novella, Pelecanos explores crime, adoption and writing from an African-American point of view. He says he's "aware of the responsibility" to get it right.
Journalist Steven Brill's latest book critiques the Affordable Care Act, which he call "unsustainable." In the next few years, "something is going to snap," he says. "We cannot pay for this."
Leonard S. Bernstein — the writer, not the composer — once owned and managed a garment factory. In his first work of fiction the octogenarian crafts quaint parables about the comic futility of life.
Film critic David Edelstein says in 2014 none of the great material came from Hollywood studios. But, he says, it was a "wonderful year" for indie films. He names Boyhood as the best of the year.
TV critic David Bianculli says that he's encouraged by how far TV has come. He picks The Good Wife as the best show of 2014, having "the deepest roster of really strong regulars and guest stars."
