Places & Travel

Gay rights activist Rodger McFarlane was involved in the earliest efforts to combat the transmission of AIDS during the 1980s. McFarlane, who was 54, died May 15. According to his bother, the cause of death was suicide.

The rise of the San Francisco rock scene in the mid-1960s is a well-known story, but one which might have taken an entirely different direction if Frank Werber's fortunes had played out differently.

Journalist Gretchen Peters argues the U.S. should focus on the opium trade in Afghanistan as a way of combating Taliban. Her new book is Seeds of Terror.

Book critic Maureen Corrigan says the most remarkable aspect of Colm Toibin's new novel is its heroine, a "plain Jane" Irish immigrant with limited options.

Rock historian Ed Ward remembers the Detroit label Westbound Records, which recorded early funk, disco and gospel in the 1970s.

Music critic Milo Miles reviews two new albums: Booker T. Jones's Potato Hole, and Allen Toussaint's The Bright Mississippi.

Hans Fallada's 1947 novel, Every Man Dies Alone, presents a memorable portrait of ordinary resistance to Nazism in wartime Germany.

A book about the treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay has led to an investigation by the Spanish court. In Torture Team, Philippe Sands alleges that high-ranking members of the Bush administration were responsible for instituting harsh interrogation tactics.

Rock historian Ed Ward explains how New York City's Tin Pan Alley songwriters coped with changing times in the 1960s.

In Let the Right One In, Eli and Oskar are both lonely 12-year-olds — but one of them happens to be a vampire. Critic-at-large John Powers calls the Swedish film "the best vampire movie in the last 75 years."

When Henry Ford bought up a Connecticut-sized chunk of land in the Amazon River basin in 1927, he wasn't just planning to build his own vertically-integrated rubber plantation — he also envisioned the small-town America of his youth, reborn in the jungle.

Movie critic David Edelstein reviews Greg Mottola's new film Adventureland coming-of-age tale that's "quiet and forlorn, yet still somehow light on its feet."

Journalist Seymour Hersh reports that a major change in American policy toward Syria is underway. It's part of a broader strategy to bring peace to the Middle East and counter the influence of Iran.

Violence caused by Mexican drug cartels is spilling over the border into the United States. New York Times journalist Randal C. Archibold reports that home invasions and shootings related to the Mexican drug trade are spreading as far north as Canada.

Alejandro Junco de la Vega is the publisher of Mexico's most influential newspaper conglomerate. He discusses the rise of drug-related violence in Mexico and at the Mexican-US border.

The Iraqi heavy-metal band Acrassicauda had problems playing their music under Saddam Hussein, but they didn't get death threats until after the American invasion. Two band members — and the filmmaker who made a documentary about them — talk with Fresh Air's Terry Gross.

In his new book, We Can Have Peace In The Holy Land: A Plan That Will Work, former President Jimmy Carter presents his strategy to end fighting between Israelis and Palestinians.

Journalist Steve Coll says that India and Pakistan held secret talks over the disputed region of Kashmir in 2006, but that tentative plans for peace have since been abandoned due in part to the political decline of Pakistan's former president Pervez Musharraf and the terrorist attacks in Mumbai.

Matteo Garrone's epic film Gomorrah takes us into the world of the Camorra, an organized crime syndicate based in and around Naples. John Powers has a review.

Atlantic contributing editor Ta-Nehisi Coates describes growing up with a father who was a member of the Black Panthers in his new memoir, The Beautiful Struggle.