Search results for

Mark Lanegan was a founding member of the grunge-era Seattle band Screaming Trees and later part of Queens of the Stone Age. He died Tuesday of unspecified causes at his home in Ireland.

On this Labor Day, we pay tribute to the librarian. Librarians feed our hunger for knowledge, they steer us down the proper research path, they find us sources and dig out obscure facts. And though their efforts often go unheralded, now librarians are represented by an action figure. NPR's Melissa Block talks with the model for the figure, Nancy Pearl.

Comedian Billy Crystal is known for his gift for improv and impersonation. He credits his ease with riffing to lessons he learned as a child from jazz greats. For Intersections, a series on artists' influences, NPR's Susan Stamberg reports.

One of the most enduring fairy tale motifs is that of a beautiful princess confined high up in a tower. In The Red Wolf, a new book by Margaret Shannon, that princess is named Roselupin, and she passes the time by knitting and plotting her escape. Daniel Pinkwater, NPR's ambassador to the world of children's literature, joins NPR's Scott Simon to read from the book.

From the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s through the Vietnam War, Martha Gellhorn covered the major conflicts of her day. Best known as the third wife of Ernest Hemingway, Gellhorn was also a pioneer in journalism, telling the story of war in a unique and personal way. NPR's Susan Stamberg reports on a new biography of the writer.

Elmore Leonard doesn't care to be characterized as a mystery writer. The author of Get Shorty, Maximum Bob and 52 Pickup, says he writes crime novels that delve into the bad-guy characters from the get-go rather than having them suddenly appear in the last act. NPR's Brian Naylor interviews the best-selling author on Weekend Edition Sunday.

Thirty years after the publication of his book Cathedral, David Macaulay returns to the construction of sacred spaces with his new book Mosque. NPR's Liane Hansen joins the author for a conversation at the Islamic Center in Washington, D.C.

The seafaring adventure Master and Commander, starring Russell Crowe, sails into theaters Friday. Like the Patrick O'Brian novels on which it is based, the film strives for historical authenticity on every last detail, including sound effects. NPR's Michele Norris talks with sound designer Richard King.

Nowadays, most of us regard candy as a guilty pleasure, but during the Great Depression, sugary confections were marketed as healthy and inexpensive meals. That's just one of the interesting tidbits author Beth Kimmerle shares in her new book, Candy: The Sweet History. NPR's Michele Norris talks with Kimmerle.

Gary Larson created more than 4,000 cartoons for The Far Side, and they've all been collected in a hefty new anthology. Yet the artist still has trouble explaining what his strange, world-of-their-own panels are about. Hear Larson describe a cartoon he wishes he had drawn, along with other excerpts of his interview with NPR's Bob Edwards.