Arts & Life

Tales of Falling and Flying By Ben Loory

Books
Arts

People And Animals, 'Falling And Flying,' Make For A Hypnotic Read

7:00am September 07, 2017

by Michael Schaub

Ben Loory's new story collection is dreamlike in the best way: both cheerfully surreal and cosmically unsettling, full of lovelorn cephalopods, discontented sloths and the occasional darker touch.

Tales of Two Americas Edited By John Freeman

Books
Arts

Fiery And Nuanced, 'Tales Of Two Americas' Sheds Light On Economic Inequality

2:00pm September 06, 2017

by Jason Heller

This collection of essays, poems, and short stories — edited by John Freeman — makes for a gripping and intensely personal examination of inequality, transience and displacement in America.

Loudon Wainwright III Opens Up About The 'Exes & Excess' That Inform His Music

10:36am September 06, 2017

Wainwright has written remarkable songs about family, and how we hurt and heal each other. Now he details his life as a husband, father, son, philanderer and musician in the memoir Liner Notes.

The World of Tomorrow, by Brendan Mathews

Books
Arts

'The World Of Tomorrow' Is A Huge Story, Told Intimately

7:00am September 06, 2017

by Jason Sheehan

Brendan Mathew's The World of Tomorrow follows three Irish brothers having the best (or the worst) week of their lives, in 1939 New York. It's a serious literary novel, but full of madcap flourishes.

Home Again stars Reese Witherspoon as a freshly separated woman who opens her home to three young filmmakers. "She can make any word relatable," Meyers-Shyer says of the actress. "She can really say anything and you are with her."

Arts

Mother-Daughter Filmmakers Continue Rom-Com Family Tradition In 'Home Again'

6:00am September 06, 2017

by Linda Holmes

Hallie Meyers-Shyer says she doesn't mind being compared to her mom, Nancy Meyers (Something's Gotta Give, The Intern). "She's synonymous with the genre and I think it's been a positive influence."

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Books
Arts

'Sing' Mourns The Dead, Both Buried And Unburied

3:00am September 06, 2017

by Annalisa Quinn

Jesmyn Ward's lush and lonely new novel is set amid the mud, blood and heat of Mississippi. It's a road-trip odyssey complicated by hunger, sickness and the murderous racism that infects the town.

Books
Arts

Leaving The Past Behind — Or Trying To — In Rushdie's Latest

4:30pm September 05, 2017

by Ari Shapiro

Salman Rushdie's The Golden House explores the idea of reinvention in America, through an Indian family whose shady patriarch may not be able to escape his past, despite fleeing across the Atlantic.

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Fall Movie Preview: 'Tried And True' To 'Really Out There'

4:30pm September 05, 2017

by Bob Mondello

NPR movie critic Bob Mondello provides a selective preview of what Hollywood has in store for moviegoers this fall.

Cover image of A Legacy of Spies by John le Carré.

Books
Arts

Novelist John Le Carré Reflects On His Own 'Legacy' Of Spying

4:18pm September 05, 2017

by Terry Gross

The 85-year-old novelist worked for MI5 and MI6 early in his career. "I felt I had to suppress my humanity," he says of those years. His new novel is called A Legacy of Spies.

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Books
Arts

In 'A Legacy Of Spies,' John Le Carré Goes Back Out In 'The Cold'

12:10pm September 05, 2017

by Lynn Neary

Former CIA operative Valerie Plame says pop culture doesn't usually get espionage right — but le Carré comes close. His new novel is a kind of prequel to 1963's The Spy Who Came in From the Cold.

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