Search results for

Each year, limber librarians compete for the coveted gold book cart at the annual Librarian Book Cart Drill Championships. With elaborate dance, athletics and performance art routines, they vie to show that librarians can be hip.

Before it took over Latin dance halls worldwide, bachata arose from Dominican shantytowns as a kind of lower-class party music. Now, a recent CD and a series of concerts are bringing the genre's early acoustic tradition back into the spotlight.

American and Brazilian musicians have been finding common ground ever since jazz artists turned to bossa nova 50 years ago. But the result has never quite sounded like Nation Beat's mash-up of Southern country and northeast Brazilian maracatu.

It's common to turn on the news and hear reports on the sputtering economy, rising fuel prices and people struggling to make ends meet. Those seeking a break from bad news might well turn on the country-music station — and hear the same story all over again in Brenn Hill's "Debt."

Jennifer Haigh's new novel, The Condition, is about a girl who has a genetic disorder that stops her development just before puberty. The "condition" gives her family an excuse to resist facing each other and fall apart.

After decades of producing solo albums, renowned American folk musicians Grey Larsen and Cindy Kallet have released their first collaboration, Cross the Water. Here, they talk about their musical partnership and their influences in traditional Scandinavian and Balkan music.

On his new album, The Hard Way, the British singer and guitarist delves deep into old-fashioned soul and R&B, channeling the influence and spirit of Sam Cooke and Jackie Wilson.

The Hold Steady's Craig Finn and Tad Kubler were both over 30 when they made the recordings that finally brought success. But with 2006's Boys and Girls in America and the new Stay Positive, the band has found its place as one of the country's best straight-up rock groups. The band discusses the influences behind its new album.

NOMO has a tiny name, but the group makes a big impression when it drives into town. NOMO is eight musicians from Ann Arbor, Mich., with dozens of instruments and just one van. On Ghost Rock, the octet proves that its jazz- and funk-inspired instrumental music is much more than a Fela Kuti tribute.

One of the most quintessentially American composers of the 20th century was not an American. But as a boy in Argentina, Schifrin discovered George Gershwin and Louis Armstrong, setting him — and his celebrated film scores — on a path to fame.