Search results for

Jami Attenberg's new novel is based on a real woman, Mazie Phillips Gordon, who took tickets at a grimy New York City movie house and cared for decades' worth of the down-and-outs who came her way.

Robert Siegel says President Barack Obama's speech was one crafted for hard times. Melissa Block says people in the crowd seemed very interested in listening to what Obama had to say, and they thought the tone of his speech was appropriate.

Captain Fatty Goodlander has been sending Weekend Edition Sunday stories of his travels aboard his boat, The Wild Card. His latest tale explains why it's nearly impossible to "out gift" a Polynesian host.

By the time Wendy Plump learned that her husband had a longtime mistress and an 8-month-old son, their union already bore the scars of adultery — both his and hers. Plump's marital post-mortem, Vow, is a frank, intelligent inquiry into the thrills and anguish of infidelity.

CBS first aired the televised holiday special in 1973. The message still shines, but some characters and scenes feel a little dated.

The singer and songwriter played a major role in creating a contemporary, conservative gospel sound.

When author Lucas Mann turned 13, his father gave him a copy of Portnoy's Complaint, a novel The New Yorker dubbed "one of the dirtiest books ever published." Mann says the book taught him that life is painful, sometimes gross, and often funny.

Emily Rapp lived every parent's nightmare when her infant son was diagnosed with a fatal disease. The Still Point of the Turning World is not only a powerful memoir of a mother's endurance but also a meditation on how our mortality should inspire us all to live life ferociously in the present.

Bill Manbo, an auto mechanic from Riverside, Calif., took photos of life inside a Japanese-American internment camp after he and his family were forced to move to Wyoming during World War II. These rare color photographs are now compiled in a new book called Colors of Confinement.

The new collection offers small treasures of wry amusement, elegance and effortlessness, but critic Joel Whitney wonders if Strand is just rehashing themes — and even lines — from his best books.