archive
Economy
A Thin Line: Economic Development Or Corporate Welfare?
December 5, 2012 In her new series for The New York Times, reporter Louise Story traces the complicated relationship between localities and the corporations they want to lure to their states, counties and cities to help promote economic growth.
Television
Boxes Of TV Fun, Old And New, For The Holidays
December 4, 2012 It's holiday box-set season, and Fresh Air critic David Bianculli shares some favorites for the TV-lover on your list. "Giving someone a gift of a TV show," he says, "is somehow very personal. You're giving something that you love, and that, in many cases, will occupy many hours ... of their time."
Author Interviews
'Inventing Wine': The History Of A Very Vintage Beverage
December 4, 2012 In his new book, author and oenophile Paul Lukacs traces the 8,000-year history of our original alcoholic beverage — from ancient times, when wine was believed to be of divine origin, to the sauvignon blanc you find in your supermarket today.
Books
A New 'Testament' Told From Mary's Point Of View
December 3, 2012 In his new novel, The Testament of Mary, Irish author Colm Toibin imagines Mary's life 20 years after the crucifixion, as she wonders what she might have done differently to ease her son's suffering. "I felt that I was Mary," he says. "I was her consciousness, watching the thing happening."
Fresh Air Weekend
Fresh Air Weekend: Robert Zemeckis And Ken Tucker
December 1, 2012 Robert Zemeckis' film tells the story of a pilot who crash-lands a plane while drunk and high. Friends and songwriters Buddy Miller and Jim Lauderdale just released a new album of duets. Also, Hilary Mantel has just won her second Man Booker Prize, this time for her novel Bring Up The Bodies — the sequel to Wolf Hall.
Music Reviews
Tracey Thorn: 'Secular Carols' For The Holidays
November 30, 2012 Thorn has recorded a holiday album, Tinsel and Lights, that critic Ken Tucker says might just work for warmer weather, as well. Tucker praises Thorn's voice as "bolstered by a firm intelligence," and says she avoids the fatty treacle that often weighs down Christmas albums.
Author Interviews
'Times' Advice Guru Answers Your Social Q's
November 30, 2012 New York Times advice columnist Philip Galanes details how to handle breakups, cellphone calls and food allergies — among other topics — in his book Social Q's: How to Survive the Quirks, Quandaries and Quagmires of Today.
Music Reviews
Turning Up The Volume On The Electric Blues
November 29, 2012 A new 12-disc compilation traces the history of electric blues from its inauspicious start through its heyday in the 1950s and '60s. Critic Ed Ward says Plug It In! Turn It Up! does "a great job of illuminating one particular aspect of the blues."
Movie Interviews
'Flight' Takes On Questions Of Accountability
November 29, 2012 In the Robert Zemeckis film starring Denzel Washington, a pilot with a secret substance-abuse problem successfully crash-lands an airplane while high on drugs and alcohol. He must then ask himself some tough questions about whether his act of heroism is undermined by his addiction.
Music Reviews
'Buddy And Jim': Friends In Life And Songwriting
November 28, 2012 Buddy Miller and Jim Lauderdale just released a new album of duets. Critic Ken Tucker says Buddy and Jim recalls an earlier era of country music. The pair's voices, Tucker says, connect through "shared emotion in a song."
Middle East
The Middle East: A Web Of 'Topsy-Turvy' Alliances
November 28, 2012 Robert Malley, a program director for the International Crisis Group, analyzes the complexity of the situation in the Middle East, a region where conflicts interconnect and expand upon one another. "These alliances," says Malley, "are not clear cut ... they are alliances of convenience."
Music Reviews
Cecilia Bartoli's New 'Mission' Unearths Baroque Gems
November 27, 2012 Critic Lloyd Schwartz welcomes the opera star's new album, Mission, which breathes new life into the work of Italian composer Agostino Steffani. Bartoli, he says, has an astonishing capacity for vocal fireworks and warm, delicate lyricism.
Author Interviews
'The Last Refuge': Yemen, Al-Qaida And The U.S.
November 27, 2012 In his new book, journalist Gregory Johnsen charts the rise of Yemen as a haven for al-Qaida and explores the recent history of radical Islam in the Arabian Peninsula. The death of Osama bin Laden, he says, had more of an effect on the U.S. psyche than it did on people in Yemen.
Music Reviews
Jason Kao Hwang: From The Blues To China And Back
November 26, 2012 The violinist attempts to mix jazz, classical and traditional Chinese music with his octet on Burning Bridge.
Author Interviews
Mantel Takes Up Betrayal, Beheadings In 'Bodies'
November 26, 2012 Hilary Mantel is the first woman to win the Man Booker Prize twice, first for her 2009 novel, Wolf Hall, and now for that book's 2012 sequel, Bring Up the Bodies. The novels are part of a historical fiction trilogy about Tudor England and the events surrounding the reign of King Henry VIII.
