Society & Culture

At the height of her addiction to heroin, Tracey Helton Mitchell lived in an alley and sold her body. Now she works as an addiction specialist helping others. Her new memoir is The Big Fix.

Comic Louie Anderson has had a hugely successful stand-up career for the last 30 years, but he admits he wasn't a very good actor early on. "I didn't know who I was or how to do it," he tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross.

Olivia Laing surveys the landscape of urban alienation in her new book, a work that is part-memoir and part-criticism. Critic Maureen Corrigan says The Lonely City is "absolutely one of a kind."

Social media and dating apps are putting unprecedented pressures on America's teen girls, author Nancy Jo Sales says. Her new book, American Girls, opens with a story about one 13-year-old who received an Instagram request for "noodz" [nude photos] from a boy she didn't know very well.

Growing up, Victor LaValle loved reading the horror stories of H.P. Lovecraft. It wasn't until later that LaValle recognized the racism in Lovecraft's work and felt the need to respond.

Once a grand seaside destination, Atlantic City now faces the prospect of a takeover by the state of New Jersey. Historian Bryant Simon and reporter Amy Rosenberg discuss the city's rise and fall.

Once a grand seaside destination, Atlantic City now faces the prospect of a takeover by the state of New Jersey. Historian Bryant Simon and reporter Amy Rosenberg discuss the city's rise and fall.

Joe R. Lansdale grew up poor in east Texas and worked as a janitor and in a potato field before finding success as a writer. Honky Tonk Samurai is the latest book in his mystery series.

The French are having a huge cultural row over some spelling changes the government is about to put into effect. It leads our linguist Geoff Nunberg to wonder why we never have controversies over spelling like the French do. Why do we insist on putting up with a spelling system that everybody acknowledges is a chaotic mess?

Known for her recent work in Downton Abbey and the Harry Potter films, the Oscar-winning actress now stars in The Lady in the Van, a film about an elderly woman who lived in a van for 15 years.

Ethan Canin traces the complicated lives of two generations of mathematical geniuses in his new novel A Doubter's Almanac. Critic Maureen Corrigan calls it an "elegant and devastating novel."

Trevor Noah, talks about taking over the Daily Show from Jon Stewart, growing up in South Africa the son of a black mother and a white father under apartheid when mixed marriage was illegal, and adapting his stand-up comedy to American audiences.

Journalist Susan Jacoby tells Fresh Air that more than half of Americans will change religion at least once in their adult life time. Her new book is Strange Gods: A Secular History of Conversion.

Sue Klebold says she wishes she'd asked her son Dylan "the kinds of questions that would've encouraged him to open up." Published 17 years after the massacre, her new memoir is A Mother's Reckoning.

Grey explains how he brought his decadent Cabaret character to life on both the stage and screen, and reflects on coming out as gay after years of living closeted. His memoir is Master Of Ceremonies.

Growing up in the 1980s, brothers Jay and Mark Duplass weren't into typical family movies. Their friends were enthralled by Star Wars, but Jay tells Fresh Air's Ann Marie Baldonado that he and his brother were more interested in "whatever showed up on HBO," including Kramer vs. Kramer, Sophie's Choice and Hannah and Her Sisters.

CNN's Peter Bergen describes how the Internet and social media have been used to radicalize and recruit Americans to jihad — and how some new jihadists then use those same tools to draw in others.

Journalist, novelist and playwright Thulani Davis traces her roots in My Confederate Kinfolk: a Twenty-First Century Freedwoman Discovers Her Roots. Among the revelations Davis uncovered was that her ancestors include a Scots-Irish clan of cotton planters as well as Africans from Sierra Leone.

A performance with singer Iris Dement. Her song 'Let the Mystery Be' was used as a theme for the HBO series of 'The Leftovers.' She was born in Arkansas and her music is inspired by the sound of the delta, and the Pentecostal church.