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February 28, 2013 Marisa Silver's new novel imagines the meeting of a Depression-era photographer and her now-iconic subject. Giving the characters different names but similar stories to their real-life counterparts, Silver tackles big questions about the morality of art.

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February 27, 2013 Franklin found her voice in songs such as "I Never Loved a Man" for Atlantic Records in the 1960s. Before Atlantic, however, Franklin recorded for Columbia, and in those early recordings you can hear the legend just beginning to emerge.

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February 27, 2013 John Thavis covered the Vatican from Rome for nearly 30 years while working for the Catholic News Service. In his new book, The Vatican Diaries, he describes a place much less organized and hierarchical than the public imagines.

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February 26, 2013 We're living in an age obsessed with authenticity, says linguist Geoff Nunberg, but we often choose to nitpick the wrong details. Whether it's Downton Abbey, Mad Men, Lincoln or Argo, Nunberg argues, a historical novel or screenplay should give us a translation, not a transcription.

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February 26, 2013 From food scientists who study the human palate to maximize consumer bliss, to marketing campaigns that target teens to hook them for life on a brand, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Michael Moss' new book goes inside the world of processed, packaged goods.

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February 25, 2013 Reporters Kevin Cullen and Shelley Murphy, who covered Bulger for years for The Boston Globe, have a new book out about the career criminal. Bulger was wanted for 19 murders when he was captured by the FBI in 2011. He faces trial in June.

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February 25, 2013 The debut album from the New York trio Guards is big on atmospherics, but also features a grandness of intent that connects the group to acts as varied as U2, Arcade Fire and The Beach Boys.

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February 23, 2013 Blanco, who read his poem "One Today" at Obama's second inauguration, is the first immigrant, Latino and openly gay poet chosen to read at an inauguration. Emily Bazelon explores teen bullying and how the rise of the Internet and social media make the experience more challenging.

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February 22, 2013 Ben Affleck's Argo won Golden Globes for best director and best motion picture/drama. The film now has Oscar nominations for Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay. Affleck talks about his approach to the story of six diplomats who managed to escape a hostile Iran in 1979.

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February 22, 2013 The actor, nominated for an Academy Award for his role in David O. Russell's film, talks about watching movies with his father as a kid in Philadelphia, his childhood fascination with soldiers and being up against Daniel Day Lewis for an Oscar.

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February 21, 2013 The author of Swamplandia! has a new collection of short stories called Vampires in the Lemon Grove. Critic Maureen Corrigan says the stories are daring and devastating, and with them Russell establishes herself as one of the great American writers of our young century.

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February 21, 2013 Dr. Sam Parnia researches the experiences of cardiac arrest patients in the time between when their hearts stop and when they are brought back to life. Parnia thinks of these experiences as actual-death experiences as opposed to near-death experiences.

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February 20, 2013 In the Chilean film No, which is nominated for Best Foreign Language Film, a young ad man devises a campaign to vote the dictator Augusto Pinochet out of office using rainbows and catchy theme songs.

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February 20, 2013 In a new book, the CNN anchor tells the story of Combat Outpost Keating. The ill-fated American military base was in a remote Afghan valley, and on Oct. 3, 2009, it became the site of one of the deadliest attacks against U.S. troops in the history of the war in Afghanistan.

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February 19, 2013 In her new book, Slate senior editor Emily Bazelon explores teen bullying, what it is and what it isn't, and how the rise of the Internet and social media make the experience more challenging. "It really can make bullying feel like it's 24/7," she says.

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