Places & Travel

Maureen Corrigan reviews a new collection of the most celebrated essays of Food and travel writer Betty Fussel.

Director Damien Chazelle talks about his movie La La Land, a love story set in the present day, but the influence of old Hollywood and musicals of the past is all around.

Fist and his wife are the only foreign journalists still living in Beirut. He has been covering Lebanon for the past fourteen years, and has a new book about his reporting, called Pity the Nation: Lebanon at War.

Longtime activist Cleve Jones reflects on his decades in the LGBT movement, beginning with the 1970s when he first moved to San Francisco.

Smith's latest book, Swing Time, tells the story of two girls who dream of being dancers, but only one has the talent to do so

Mid-Thirties Single Scene, the new album by the Australian group Scott and Charlene's Wedding, describes the thoughts and actions of a character who has just turned 34. Critic Ken Tucker has a review.

Kelly Reichardt presents the interlocking lives of several Montana women in her new film, Certain Women. Critic John Powers calls it a work of "quiet restraint and unhurried rhythm."

Enter Me

Film director Barry Jenkins and playwright Tarell McCraney both grew up in the same housing project in Miami, and both were raised by mothers who were addicted to crack. Their new film Moonlight draws on their experiences.

The New Zealand band began releasing records on the Flying Nun label in the 1980s. Four decades later, they are still at it. Rock historian Ed Ward tells story of The Chills.

Producer, composer and arranger Thom Bell was one of the prime originators of the Sound of Philadelphia, creating hits with the Delfonics such as "La La La Means I Love You" and "Didn't I Blow Your Mind." Bell was born in Jamaica and moved to Philadelphia at age 5. He planned to become a classical conductor, but in his early 20s, he was signed by Cameo Records to create a Philadelphia version of Motown.

Eric Newman, the executive producer of Narcos, the netflix series about drug kingpin Pablo Escobar and the Columbian drug wars tells us about the series which is told in part from the point of view of an American DEA agent.

Married couple Rennie and Brett Sparks have been making songs together as The Handsome Family for 21 years. In 2014, they gained much wider fame when their haunting song, "Far From Any Road," became the theme for the first season of HBO's True Detective.

Actress and voice-over artist Pamela Adlon on deciding to base her new FX series Better Things, on her own life as a single mother of three daughters, and working with Louie C.K. who created the show with her. She also worked on his show Louie.

A new drama series on Netflix chronicles the rise of early hip-hop music in the late '70s. Rock critic Ken Tucker says the show's soundtrack is dense, complex and delightful.

Two masked robbers clean out small branches of a Texas bank in David Mackenzie's new neo-Western. Critic David Edelstein calls Hell or High Water a work of "broad scale and deep feeling."

Journalist Rukmini Callimachi on what she's learned about ISIS tactics from her conversations with a German man who joined ISIS and became disillusioned, and from monitoring the organization's own encrypted social media channels.

The National Book Award winner's new novel is based in part on her memories of growing up in Brooklyn in the 1970s. Woodson describes the teen years as an "amazing and urgent moment" in life.