Search results for

British novelist Lee Child takes his maverick hero Jack Reacher back to 1990 in The Enemy, the eighth book in his best-selling series. Child talks to NPR's Linda Wertheimer in the second of a three-part series on mystery writers.

Katharine Whalen's first album in seven years offers a mix of jazz, '60s-style pop and occasional trip-hop beats, all fueled by the former Squirrel Nut Zipper's playful, confident voice. The result is dazzling and seductive.

Matt Mays had an ambitious plan: write and produce a full-length, feature film and score the music for it. The movie, When the Angels Make Contact, would be a story of heartbreak and the universal search for meaning in an often lonely and dark world. The music would tell the story in song. Though he couldn't afford to finish the film, he did finish the album. Sharing the movie's title, it's a cinematic collection of beautifully dark, experimental rock pieces.

Today on the podcast, we're going to take a trip to Greenville, South Carolina, where factories filled with bright shiny machines sit just across the train tracks from shuttered old mills. It's the perfect place to ask the question — what is the state of the low skilled American worker?

On Sentir, the Israeli singer-songwriter pulls disparate influences into a cohesive whole. Drawing from her own family background, Levy blends flamenco with the music of the Sephardic Jews.

Out of nowhere, Kendrick Lamar dropped a new record this week, called untitled unmastered. Reviewer Kiana Fitzgerald says that listening to these demos "feels like we're playing catch-up."

Columbia law professor Tim Wu writes that information technologies have all gone through a similar life cycle: "Information technologies give rise to industries, and industries to empires." Wu says this cycle ultimately destroys the innovative spirit that creates new information technologies and the openness that typifies them in their early years. In his new book, The Master Switch, Wu asks if the Internet is next. NPR's Robert Siegel asks Wu if the history of various information technologies -- the telephone, movies, radio, television -- can predict the future of the Internet.

A quartet of quirky fads faded away into the American mist.

Go to any pharmacy or grocery store and stand in front of the toothpaste aisle and you will face an overwhelming array of choices. Each brand has a plethora of options

Tessa Hadley's new novel follows four siblings as they gather at a dilapidated family cottage for a bittersweet summer together. Critic Heller McAlpin praises Hadley's "wry compassion."