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November 21, 2012 Margaret Talbot tells the story of her father, actor Lyle Talbot, in her memoir The Entertainer. He began his career as an assistant to a traveling hypnotist, and went on to star in movies with Shirley Temple and Humphrey Bogart — and played next-door neighbor Joe Randolph on Ozzie and Harriet.

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November 21, 2012 "The Empress of the Blues" gave voice the listeners' tribulations and yearnings of the 1920s and '30s. A new 10-CD box set collects the complete works of the colossus who straddled jazz and blues.

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November 20, 2012 In a new memoir, Grace Coddington explains how she grew up on a remote island off the coast of Wales, started modeling as a young woman and ended up as creative director at Vogue magazine. Coddington speaks with Fresh Air's Terry Gross about her life in the fashion industry.

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November 20, 2012 One of the great fantasies of the hippie era was that new combinations of music would emerge from the experimentation that was going on. Still, very few lived it. Ed Ward says The Insect Trust was one of the exceptions.

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November 20, 2012 Jami Attenberg's black comedy about the fallout of one woman's food addiction is a tough but affecting story about family members putting up with each other. Critic Maureen Corrigan says the novel's fragmented narration and jumpy timeline add to its emotional punch.

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November 19, 2012 What did Jesus look like? In their new book, The Color of Christ, Edward J. Blum and Paul Harvey explore how different groups have claimed Jesus as their own — and how depictions of Jesus have both inspired civil rights crusades, and been used to justify the violence of white supremacists.

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November 19, 2012 Actor Irrfan Khan talks about his role in the new movie Life of Pi, directed by Ang Lee and based on the best-selling novel of the same name. Khan also starred in Slumdog Millionaire, The Namesake and A Mighty Heart.

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November 17, 2012 Andrew Solomon's new book is about families with children who are profoundly different or likely to be stigmatized. Writer Tony Dokoupil discusses what's next now that voters in two states have approved recreational marijuana use.

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November 16, 2012 David O. Russell's Silver Linings Playbook stars Bradley Cooper as a bipolar high school teacher trying to put his life back together. But critic David Edelstein says it's the performance of co-star Jennifer Lawrence that makes the film a hot ticket.

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November 16, 2012 Anthropologist T.M. Luhrmann studies the personal relationships evangelicals develop with God. In her book When God Talks Back, she explains how relationships with God are often cemented through the power of prayer. The book has just come out in paperback.

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November 16, 2012 Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Katherine Boo spent more than three years in Mumbai's Annawadi slum. In her book Behind the Beautiful Forevers, she profiles people living in extreme poverty — right in the shadow of luxury hotels. On Wednesday, the book won the National Book Award for nonfiction.

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November 15, 2012 Tony Kushner wrote the screenplay for the film Lincoln, which focuses on the 16th president's tumultuous final months in office. Kushner read more than 20 books before writing about Lincoln, a man who had "an enormous capacity for grief that didn't deprive him of the ability to act."

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November 15, 2012 In Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, historian Doris Kearns Goodwin explains how the 16th president brought into his cabinet three powerful men who politically opposed him. She spoke with Fresh Air's Terry Gross in 2005.

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November 15, 2012 James Bond and The Rolling Stones both turn 50 this year. As critic John Powers points out, both may have been born in response to a dying British Empire, but their evolving legacies have reflected the times through which these brands have lived.

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November 14, 2012 The country-music star has enlisted the help of Merle Haggard, Elvis Costello and others to salute the man behind songs like "Make the World Go Away."

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