Arts & Life

Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) takes a fantastic adventure across Middle-earth in Peter Jackson's prequel to his Lord of the Rings trilogy.

A 'Hobbit,' Off On His Unhurried Journey

by Bob Mondello

Peter Jackson takes his audience back to Middle-earth in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, set in a time before the Lord of the Rings films. NPR's Bob Mondello says that where the Rings films struggled with what to omit, The Hobbit labors to justify its three-hour running time.
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Oprah's Book Club Turns Over A New Page

by Lynn Neary

Oprah Winfrey says her Book Club grew out of a desire to talk to authors after finishing their books. While the original version of the club ended when Winfrey's television show went off the air in 2011, it has now been rebooted online and on the new Oprah Winfrey Network as Book Club 2.0.
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Ayana Mathis is a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop. The Twelve Tribes of Hattie is her debut novel.

Oprah's Second Pick: A First-Time Novelist

by Lynn Neary

Oprah Winfrey's second pick for her rebooted book club is The Twelve Tribes of Hattie, by first-time novelist Ayana Mathis. It's a chronicle of the Great Migration of African-Americans leaving the rural South, following a family matriarch who leaves Georgia to start a new life in Philadelphia.
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Lemony Snicket

Lemony Snicket Dons A Trenchcoat

In Who Could That Be at This Hour?, a prequel to A Series of Unfortunate Events, Daniel Handler satirizes pulp mysteries and uncovers the parallels between detective fiction and childhood. In both, he says, an outsider is trying to make his way in a mysteriously corrupt world.
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Edward Hopper is well-known in the U.S. for paintings such as Nighthawks (1942) — pensive, lonely portraits of people sitting together yet alone. He was less well-known in France, but an exhibit of his work at the Grand Palais has drawn impressive crowd

Hopper's Lonely Figures Find Some Friends In Paris

by Susan Stamberg

An exhibition of works by American realist Edward Hopper is drawing impressive crowds at the Grand Palais. Hopper is well-known in the U.S. for his pensive, lonely portraits of people sitting together yet alone. He's less well-known in France, but the exhibit has been a surprising success.
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