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Thursday, March 14, 2013

Author Interviews

Two Awards In One Day For 'Battleborn' Author Claire Vaye Watkins

Claire Vaye Watkins' debut collection of short stories — Battleborn — is informed by her childhood in the West.

March 14, 2013 On Wednesday, it was announced that the 28-year-old fiction writer had won the Story Prize as well as the Rosenthal Family Foundation Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Her debut story collection explores the landscape, people and history of the American West.

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Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Author Interviews

A Young Man Gets 'Filthy Rich' Boiling, Bottling Tap Water

Water pouring from a bottle into a glass.

March 13, 2013 Mohsin Hamid's How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia explores life in the modern megalopolis and the growing scarcity of clean water. In search of his fortune, Hamid's protagonist lands on a scam to boil and sell tap water as bottled mineral water in a novel that takes inspiration from self-help books.

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Music Reviews

The Moving Sidewalks: Where The British Invasion Met Texas Blues

Before ZZ Top, Billy Gibbons (second from right) was in the more psychedelic Moving Sidewalks.

March 13, 2013 Before he became the guitarist for ZZ Top, Billy Gibbons was in a band called the Moving Sidewalks that just missed its shot at stardom. The album the Moving Sidewalks never released in the late 1960s was released in late 2012 and is very much a period piece, albeit a very well-made one.

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Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Music Interviews

Adrian Younge: Looking Back To Move Hip-Hop Forward

Composer and producer Adrian Younge has produced two new albums: one with William Hart of The Delfonics and another with rapper Ghostface Killah.

March 12, 2013 Spaghetti Westerns, Philadelphia soul, opera and the Wu-Tang Clan all come together in the music of Adrian Younge. He has produced and composed two new albums — one with William Hart, the lead singer of The Delfonics, and another with rapper Ghostface Killah.

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Book Reviews

'Lean In': Not Much Of A Manifesto, But Still A Win For Women

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg.

March 12, 2013 Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg has drawn a lot of attention with her "sort of a feminist manifesto" Lean In. Critic Maureen Corrigan finds that much of the book is bland, but toward the end, Sandberg's intellectual charisma breaks through.

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Monday, March 11, 2013

Music Reviews

Tegan And Sara Reach Out To New Audiences

Twin sisters Tegan and Sara Quin have been writing songs since they were 15 and independently released their first full-length album in 1999. Since then, they've produced seven studio albums.

March 11, 2013 The twin sisters from Canada depart from their indie singer-songwriter roots with their latest album. The music on Heartthrob is often loaded with a carefully articulated sense of doubt that Tegan and Sara suggest needs to be shaken off through a triumph of the pop-music will.

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Author Interviews

'Frankenstein's Cat': Bioengineering The Animals Of The Future

Cover of Frankenstein's Cat

March 11, 2013 Science journalist Emily Anthes talks about how scientists are engineering mice with tumors and working to create pigs that can grow organs for human transplant and insects that could serve as drones for the military.

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Saturday, March 09, 2013

Fresh Air Weekend

Fresh Air Weekend: Mike White, Mike Piazza And David Bowie

In HBO's Enlightened, Laura Dern stars as corporate executive Amy Jellicoe, who returns from a post-meltdown retreat to pick up the pieces of her broken life. Series creator Mike White stars as Tyler, Amy's friend and co-worker.

March 9, 2013 Enlightened's writer, Mike White, says the show's whistle-blowing plot line was inspired, in part, by his own father's experience. In a new memoir, the catcher opens up about feuding with Roger Clemens and retiring from the game. Bowie's new album plays like a collection of discreet singles.

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Friday, March 08, 2013

Author Interviews

The History Of The FBI's Secret 'Enemies' List

John Edgar Hoover, Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation gives a speech on November 17, 1953, in Washington.

March 8, 2013 As J. Edgar Hoover became increasingly worried about communist threats against America, he instructed the bureau to conduct secret intelligence operations against anyone deemed "subversive." Enemies: A History of the FBI by Tim Weiner is now out in paperback.

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Movie Reviews

'Oz': Neither Great Nor Powerful

James Franco stars as the Wizard of Oz before the Wizard meets Dorothy in Oz the Great and Powerful.

March 8, 2013 There are three reasons to see this prequel to the classic 1939 film The Wizard of Oz: the trio of witches played by Mila Kunis, Rachel Weisz and Michelle Williams. But James Franco, who stars as the wizard-in-the-making, disappoints — and the film as a whole is a bit snoozy.

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Thursday, March 07, 2013

Author Interviews

Making It In The Big Leagues Was A 'Long Shot' For Catcher Mike Piazza

Retired Major League Baseball player Mike Piazza's new autobiography, Long Shot, addresses the steroid controversy and recalls the first game after the Sept. 11 attacks.

March 7, 2013 In a new memoir, the Major League Baseball catcher opens up about getting drafted in the 62nd round, his feud with Roger Clemens and what it's like to go into retirement. Leaving the game, he says, was "like a small death."

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Music Reviews

David Bowie Awakens To 'The Next Day' Of His Career

After a 10-year hiatus, David Bowie has just returned with The Next Day.

March 7, 2013 The icon's new album plays like a collection of discreet singles, with each performed in a different style, genre and mood. In this way, the album isn't a return to form, in part because David Bowie never took one form to begin with.

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Wednesday, March 06, 2013

Around the Nation

Ruth Bader Ginsburg: The Supreme Court's 'Heavyweight'

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg poses during a group photo in September 2009 in the East Conference Room of the Supreme Court.

March 6, 2013 In a profile of Ginsburg for this week's New Yorker, Jeffrey Toobin describes how the incremental philosophy of litigation that helped her win many precedent-setting women's rights cases as a lawyer is reflected in her career as a Supreme Court justice.

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Books

A Fiendish Fly Recalls Kafka In 'Jacob's Folly'

fly

March 6, 2013 The main character in Rebecca Miller's new novel is a pest with a past, and his gnat-like status offers him one great advantage: Those convex eyes allow him to see fully into the hearts of humans, specifically two other characters whose paths intersect with his.

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