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Arts

Three-Minute Fiction Readings: 'Compromise' And 'The F'

5:25pm May 26, 2013

NPR's Bob Mondello and Susan Stamberg read excerpts of two of the best submissions for Round 11 of our short story contest. They read The Art of Compromise by Lindsey Appleford of Boerne, Texas, and Claudia Who Found the F by Sean Enfield of Denton, Texas.

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The Movie Gillian Anderson Has 'Seen A Million Times'

5:25pm May 26, 2013

by Lily Percy

Actor Gillian Anderson could watch the animated movie Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa a million times. "I cannot stop laughing when I see this film," she says.

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Russian soldiers take their position near the village of Shatoy, Chechnya.

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Transcending Hardships By Saving Others In 'Constellation'

12:05pm May 26, 2013

by NPR Staff

In his debut novel, A Constellation of Vital Phenomena, Anthony Marra takes readers to the war-torn republic of Chechnya. People disappear, informers betray and those with humanity endure great hardships.

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Keith Carradine (right) performs with the cast of Hands on a Hardbody during its spring 2013 run in New York.

Two Songs That Led Keith Carradine From Screen To Broadway

6:22pm May 25, 2013

by NPR Staff

One of Keith Carradine's most famous roles in recent years was as Wild Bill Hickok on the HBO TV show Deadwood. But Carradine is also a musician, and it was a song that jump-started his career — and another that drew him to his latest Broadway role.

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Pearl Buck was born in West Virginia but spent much of her childhood in China, where her parents worked as missionaries.

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A Lost And Found 'Wonder': Pearl S. Buck's Final Novel

6:15pm May 25, 2013

by NPR Staff

Before her death in 1973, Pearl S. Buck wrote one final novel. But The Eternal Wonder languished in a Texas storage unit for decades until its discovery last fall.

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Still Talking: After 18 years, Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Celine (Julie Delpy) apparently have plenty left to hash out.

Arts

More Time Together, Though 'Midnight' Looms

5:39pm May 25, 2013

by Bob Mondello

Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke return for the third in Richard Linklater's loosely peerless Before series, and they've never been more persuasive — nor has the storytelling. (Recommended)

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Three-Minute Fiction Readings: 'Geometry' And 'Snowflake'

5:39pm May 25, 2013

NPR's Bob Mondello and Susan Stamberg read excerpts of two of the best submissions for Round 11 of our short story contest. They read Snowflake by Winona Wendth of Lancaster, Mass., and Geometry by Eugenie Montague of Los Angeles.

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'Steal The Menu': A Chronicle Of A Career In Food Coverage

1:19pm May 25, 2013

When Raymond Sokolov began writing about food, it was considered a specialty portfolio. Today, celebrity chefs abound in the U.S. and Britain, with cookbooks, TV shows and groupies. Host Scott Simon speaks with Sokolov about his new book, Steal the Menu: A Memoir of Forty Years in Food.

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Arthur Fiala, shown here in 1918 and 2005, was a private in the 26th Company of the 20th Engineers Regiment during World War I.

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A Race Against Time To Find WWI's Last 'Doughboys'

6:27am May 25, 2013

by NPR Staff

In 2003, Richard Rubin set out to talk to every American veteran of World War I he could find. With help from the French, he tracked down dozens of centenarian vets and recorded their stories in a new book called The Last of the Doughboys.

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Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy reprise their roles as Jesse and Celine in Before Midnight, the latest in Richard Linklater's series about a couple's relationship over the years.

Arts

Two New Stories With A New-Wave Vibe

12:31pm May 24, 2013

by David Edelstein

The Truffaut borrowings are explicit in Noah Baumbach's Frances Ha, while Richard Linklater's Before Midnight takes its cues from Eric Rohmer's gentle but expansive talkfests. In both films, conversation is a centerpiece as characters navigate relationships.

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