SMiLE may be the most famous unreleased album of all time, but it's not really unreleased: Bits and pieces of it wound up on other Beach Boys albums. Now that EMI has assembled a definitive collection of the session tracks, Ed Ward has listened to them — and wonders what the shouting was about.
Criminologist David M. Kennedy's strategy for reducing gang violence has dramatically reduced youth homicide rates nationwide. In his new memoir, Don't Shoot, Kennedy outlines how community meetings and interventions have worked to curb youth violence in more than 70 cities.
At its core, John le Carre's Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy isn't really about espionage, says critic John Powers. The 1974 novel, adapted for the screen in 1979 by the BBC, is actually about secrets and lies and shifting identities — which is to say, a metaphor for our own daily lives.
The darkness of Tom Waits' lyrics is accentuated by the rumble and rasp of his voice, which sounded old even when he was young. On Bad Like Me, Waits reflects on loneliness, life, death and heartbreak. Here, he talks to Terry Gross about performing, being a father and writing his haunting melodies.
Actor Michael Shannnon talks about his role on Boardwalk Empire; David Carr, who writes the Media Equation column for The New York Times, reflects on the future of journalism; and rock critic Ken Tucker reviews a new album from the bank Deer Tick.
Many of Spencer's novels feature a turning point — a dreadful, unplanned act committed by one of the characters. In his latest book, Man in the Woods, a carpenter accidentally kills a man, which leads him to question himself and his relationship with God.
The PBS documentary series America in Primetime, which premieres this weekend, puts TV under the microscope, analyzing various tropes and character archetypes. Critic David Bianculli says it's the smartest TV show about television he's seen in the past two decades.
The lives of writers drive two films opening this week: The Rum Diary, starring Johnny Depp, dramatizes a Hunter S. Thompson novel. Roland Emmerich's Anonymous, meanwhile, examines who wrote Shakespeare's plays. Critic David Edelstein says both films show how hard it is to write about writers.
David Carr, who writes the Media Equation column for The New York Times, says that despite cuts, the future of journalism has never looked brighter. "I look at my backpack that is sitting here and it contains more journalistic firepower than the entire newsroom that I walked into 30-40 years ago," he says.
Deer Tick has just released its fourth album, Divine Providence. Rock critic Ken Tucker says the album takes the Rhode Island band in a more raw-sounding direction.
Since 2006, 40,000 people have been murdered in Mexico as drug cartels battle each other and the Mexican military. Journalist Ioan Grillo traces how Mexico came to control drug trafficking in El Narco.
More than half of all employed people worldwide work off the books. And that number is expected to climb over the next decade. Investigative journalist Robert Neuwirth examines how the underground economy works in his book, Stealth of Nations.
After Steve Jobs was diagnosed with cancer, he asked Walter Isaacson to write his biography. The new book tells the personal story of the man behind the personal computer — from his childhood in California to his thoughts on family, friends, death and religion.
The "i" prefix began as an abbreviation for the word "Internet," but ended up being much more than that. "By the time i- was fleshed out, Apple had transformed itself from a culty computer-maker to a major religion," says linguist Geoff Nunberg.
The actor plays a righteous federal agent who succumbs to all sorts of temptations on the HBO drama Boardwalk Empire. To build the character of Nelson Van Alden, he says, he worked out an elaborate back story about the agent's childhood.