Ayad Akhtar's debut novel, American Dervish, tells the story of a Pakistani-American boy in Milwaukee coming to terms with his religion and identity. Akhtar drew on his own experiences exploring the Muslim faith as a teenager growing up in Wisconsin.
The Iranian film A Separation won the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film on Sunday. Critic John Powers says the remarkable film takes viewers inside a country that is far more complicated and fascinating than news headlines indicate.
Michelle Alexander says that many of the gains of the civil rights movement have been undermined by the mass incarceration of blacks in the war on drugs.
Two more shows to add to your 2012 list: Justified, which returns to FX Tuesday night for its third season, and Alcatraz, a new Fox drama and the latest from Lost producer J.J. Abrams. TV critic David Bianculli explains why they're both worth watching.
Gary Oldman has played everyone from Sid Vicious and Dracula, to Sirius Black in the Harry Potter films, and now George Smiley in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. Also, writer Susan Orlean details how Rin Tin Tin became one of the biggest film stars of the silent era in Rin Tin Tin: The Life and Legend.
Actor Timothy Olyphant stars in the FX series Justified as Deputy U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens, a present-day lawman with Wild West instincts. Olyphant also starred in HBO's Deadwood as sheriff Seth Bullock.
The Southern actor discusses playing a white supremacist turned born-again Christian on the critically acclaimed FX series Justified — and how he gets into the mind-set to play one of TV's worst bad boys.
Meryl Streep stars as Margaret Thatcher in Phyllida Lloyd's biopic about the former prime minister of the United Kingdom. Film critic David Edelstein applauds her performance, calling it "one of the greatest impersonations I'd ever seen."
The actor is so good at what he does, you might not recognize him from role to role. He's played everyone from Sid Vicious and Dracula, to Sirius Black in the Harry Potter films, and now George Smiley in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.
YouTube's future success depends on increasing the amount of time people spend watching videos on the site. The Google-owned website plans to roll out more than 100 new, professionally produced channels in a push to draw viewers away from television, and onto the Web.
The veteran broadcaster returns to public television with a new public affairs program. Critic David Bianculli says it might be hard to find, but it's important to watch.
Fricke was one of the most popular country-music vocalists of the 1980s. Between 1982 and 1984, she scored six No. 1 hits. Since then, her career has dimmed, but now she's back, having arranged some of her biggest hits with bluegrass instrumentation.
In Intel Wars, historian Matthew Aid details how bureaucratic policies and a glut of raw data have weakened the intelligence community in its war against would-be terrorists.
Shalom Auslander's Hope: A Tragedy takes on genocide, identity politics and Anne Frank (now elderly and squatting in a farmhouse in upstate New York) with grim humor and daring irreverence.
The latest duo recording from the clarinetist and pianist is like a slow-motion sleepwalk.