Books

Books
Arts

'Inventing Wine': The History Of A Very Vintage Beverage

1:40pm December 04, 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.

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Colm Toibin's new novel, The Testament of Mary, imagines the life of the mother of Christ in her later years.

Books

A New 'Testament' Told From Mary's Point Of View

1:06pm December 03, 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."

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From Action Comics 14, Neil deGrasse Tyson greets Superman to help him with a problem.

Neil deGrasse Tyson Helps His New 'Bud' Superman Get A Glimpse Of Home

8:29am December 03, 2012

by Linda Holmes

The Hayden Planetarium director and pop-culture go-to science guy offered expert advice on how Superman could watch the destruction of Krypton.

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Books

America's First Black Heavyweight Champ

10:54pm July 17, 2011

Jack Johnson was America's first black heavyweight boxing champion. NPR's Tavis Smiley talks with Geoffrey Ward about Ward's book Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson, a biography about the boxer, and with filmmaker Ken Burns, who produced a documentary based on Ward's book.