Books

Book News: George Saunders Wins The Story Prize
March 6, 2014 | NPR · Also: finalists for the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction announced; testing the Hemingway App; warfare and rocket cats.
 

‘Black Moon’ Imagines A Sleepless American Nightmare
March 6, 2014 | NPR · In Kenneth Calhoun’s debut novel, no one can sleep — and the insomnia’s driving people crazy. Reviewer Jason Heller says Black Moon isn’t just another spin of the post-apocalypse plot wheel.
 

Reminder From A Marine: Civilians And Veterans Share Ownership Of War
March 6, 2014 | NPR · “The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are as much every U.S. citizen’s wars as they are the veterans’ wars,” says Phil Klay, who served in Iraq. His debut story collection is called Redeployment.
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Getty Images
Re-Released Recordings Reveal Literary Titans In Their Youth
March 6, 2014 | NPR · In the early 1960s, a young couple in Boston set out to make audio recordings of relatively young, up-and-coming writers — like James Baldwin, Philip Roth and John Updike — reading their own works.
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Courtesy of Henry Holt
Even In New Hands, Detective Philip Marlowe Rings True
March 5, 2014 | NPR · No, Raymond Chandler isn’t churning out new material from the grave. This Philip Marlowe story is written by someone else, yet it retains many of the crime writer’s best qualities.
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March 1-7: America’s ‘Unwinding,’ Black Identity And Fictional Self-Help
March 5, 2014 | NPR · This week’s softcover releases include George Packer’s The Unwinding, Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie’s Americanah and Mohsin Hamid’s How To Get Filthy Rich In Rising Asia.
 

Randy Skidmore
When Loved Ones Return From The Dead
March 5, 2014 | NPR · Jason Mott’s novel The Returned is now an ABC television series called Resurrection, which premieres this weekend. The plot was inspired by a dream Mott had about his mother.
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Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images
Hemingway Doesn’t Always Live Up To His Code
March 5, 2014 | NPR · What happens when Hemingway the writer meets Hemingway the editing app?
 

iStockphoto
‘Schmuck’ Revisits The Golden Age Of Radio, And A Bygone Manhattan
March 5, 2014 | NPR · Ross Klavan’s novel follows two radio sidekicks in midcentury New York: golden-voiced straight man Ted Fox, who has an eye for a good-looking dame, and funnyman Jerry Elkin, a veteran of World War II.
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AP
The Case For Tammany Hall Being On The Right Side Of History
March 5, 2014 | NPR · In a new book, Terry Golway takes a sympathetic view of Manhattan’s infamous political machine. He says, “Tammany Hall was there for the poor immigrant who was otherwise friendless in New York.”
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News

AP
U.S. Knew Of ‘Imminent’ Move In Crimea, Top Official Says
March 7, 2014 | NPR · Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, tells NPR that U.S. decision-makers were given a week’s notice that some Russian action was likely.
 

StoryCorps
A Homeless Teen Finds Solace In A Teacher And A Recording
March 7, 2014 | NPR · Aaron didn’t think he would ever tell a teacher he was living on the street. But sharing a recording of his personal story, he says, was a relief.
 

AP
Seeking Energy Independence, Europe Faces Heated Fracking Debate
March 7, 2014 | NPR · To stay competitive, Europeans need cheaper natural gas but they also need to be less dependent upon Russia. They’re looking at fracking as a solution, but opponents have environmental concerns.
 

Arts & Life

Publisher Releases Lullabies From ‘Goodnight Moon’ Author
March 7, 2014 | NPR · Goodnight Songs is a compilation of formerly unpublished lullabies and poems by the author of Goodnight Moon, Margaret Wise Brown. Linda Wertheimer talks to Amy Gary, who discovered the new material.
 

Magnet Releasing
A Panicky Pianist, Playing Like His Life Depends On It
March 6, 2014 | NPR · Eugenio Mira’s thriller Grand Piano doesn’t hit all of its notes perfectly, but it’s daringly written — and ultimately compelling.
 

Fox Searchlight Pictures
Wes Anderson’s New Hotel Proves Pretty Grand Indeed
March 6, 2014 | NPR · Wes Anderson’s eighth film, set primarily in a 1930s hotel, is just as stylish, precise, and nostalgic as his past films — and far funnier. (Recommended)
 

Music

NPR
The Soul Of The World’s Most Expensive Violin
March 7, 2014 | NPR · After being stored under a bed for a half century, a $16 million violin now in the hands of Anne Akiko Meyers, who’s recorded Vivaldi’s vivid Four Seasons.
 

Album Review: ‘English Oceans,’ By Drive-By Truckers
March 6, 2014 | NPR · Music critic Robert Christgau says it has been six years since Southern rock band Drive-By Truckers put out a great album. That wait ends this week with the release of the excellent English Oceans.
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Courtesy of the artist
Gazelle Amber Valentine: ‘Gender Is Not A Genre’
March 6, 2014 | NPR · The righteously outspoken guitarist from doom metal duo Jucifer speaks about women in hard rock, her almost-acoustic side project and her never-ending life on the road.
 

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