Originally published on Mon December 10, 2012 2:26 pm
Since this was an election year, NPR's Backseat Book Club decided to hold an informal poll to identify the best-loved children's books of 2012. We know that "kid lit" is a big category, stretching from baby-proof board books all the way to young-adult titles with fetching werewolves on the covers. But we're interested in books that hit the sweet spot for backseat readers — kids between 9 and 14 years of age. So we reached out to booksellers and one librarian to find out which books bowled them over this year.
Originally published on Mon December 10, 2012 6:36 am
Sean Howe is the author of Marvel Comics: The Untold Story.
In 1980, the comic book artist Frank Miller introduced the raven-haired femme fatale Elektra Natchios in the pages of Marvel Comics' Daredevil. She was the former lover of Daredevil's alter ego Matt Murdock, and his Columbia University classmate until her diplomat father was killed and she left the United States.
Credit The Art Institute of Chicago, Friends of American Art Collection / Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago
Edward Hopper is well-known in the U.S. for paintings such as Nighthawks (1942) — pensive, lonely portraits of people sitting together yet alone. He was less well-known in France, but an exhibit of his work at the Grand Palais has drawn impressive crowds.
Credit Columbus Museum of Art/Howald Fund
Edward and Josephine Hopper met as young students in art school in New York and married in 1924. Josephine was his only female model, and posed for his 1952 work,Morning Sun.
Earlier this summer, I looked for Edward Hopper's Morning Sun at its home in the Columbus Museum of Art in Ohio. In the painting, a woman sits on a bed with her knees up, gazing out a window. She's bare, but for a short pink slip. The iconic Hopper is a must-see, but on the day I visited, it was on loan to an exhibition in Madrid.
Justin Lee was raised in a conservative Southern Baptist home. He had two loving parents, and was deeply committed to his faith. In school, classmates even referred to him as "God Boy" because of his devotion.
But, as he was entering high school, Lee's whole world began to change, as he came face-to-face with feelings that he'd tried for many years to suppress.
"I didn't know I was gay at first, because I was the kid who was preaching against folks accepting themselves as gay," he tells Guy Raz, host of weekends on All Things Considered.
A young intelligence officer during the Second World War survives life in a Nazi concentration camp. A music producer in the 1970s falls in love with a young bohemian singer who breaks his heart. A lonely Italian neuroscientist makes a revolutionary discovery: Humans have no souls. These are some of the stories Sebastian Faulks weaves together in his latest novel, A Possible Life.
On-air challenge: Every answer is a six-letter word containing "QU" somewhere inside it. You'll be given anagrams of the remaining four letters. You name the words (No answer is a plural or a word formed by adding "s.").
Last week's challenge from listener Adam Cohen of Brooklyn, N.Y.: Name two articles of apparel — things you wear — which, when the words are used as verbs, are synonyms of each other. What are they?
Theweekends on All Things Considered series Movies I've Seen A Million Times features filmmakers, actors, writers and directors talking about the movies that they never get tired of watching.
Keira Knightley and director Joe Wright have worked together on three film adaptations of period novels.
Credit Focus Features
Knightley earned Golden Globe nominations for her roles in Atonement and Pride and Prejudice, her other collaborations with Wright. Could the third time be a charm?
Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina has been adapted for TV or film at least 25 times. It's a title role made great by screen legends Greta Garbo and Vivian Leigh, and now, it's Keira Knightley's turn.
Knightley reunites with Pride and Prejudice director Joe Wright in a new adaptation of the book. Here, she talks to Guy Raz, host of weekends on All Things Considered,about bringing the title character to life.
Robin Scofield, Poetry Editor, and Selfa Chew, Editor of Spanish Language content invite writers and visual artists to submit for publication in Volume 19 of the BorderSenses Literary Journal.
BorderSenses Literary Journal submission deadline March 31, 2013 Information and guidelines www.bordersenses.com
Two actors from UTEP’s Theater Department, Martin Camarillo and Jesse Marin, preview this year’s production of A Christmas Carol.
A Christmas Carol Wise Family Theatre, 2nd Floor, UTEP Fox Fine Arts Center Information: (915) 747-5118 Sunday, December 16 at 2:30pm; Friday, December 21 at 8pm; Saturday, December 22 at 2:30 & 8pm
America is obsessed with Downton Abbey, the British series about a family so wealthy that they can't feed, clothe or care for themselves. Hugh Bonneville plays the patriarch of the family, and we've invited His Lordship to play a game we're calling, "Welcome to America, Lord Grantham."
In one of the greatest movies of all time, a World War I-era Englishman played by Peter O'Toole stops with his Arab guide at a well in the desert. As they drink, they look into the distance and see a lone figure in black, galloping toward them on a camel. The Arab man recognizes him and draws a gun. The lone figure brings him down with a single musket shot. Now that's an entrance.
The man on the camel was Omar Sharif as Sherif Ali.
Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise at the Writer's Guild Awards in Beverly Hills in 1998.
Credit Martin Bureau / AFP/Getty Images
Actress Uma Thurman, 6 feet, poses during a photo session at the 64th Cannes Film Festival on May 22, 2011.
Credit Kevin Winter / Getty Images
Presenter Natalie Portman, 5 feet 3 inches, at the 84th Annual Academy Awards.
Credit Jason Kempin / Kempin/Getty Images for NEA
Actor Danny DeVito, 4 foot 10, attends the NEA's Read Across America Day kickoff on March 2.
Credit Ron Wolfson / Landov
Nicole Kidman, 5 feet 11 inches, and Tom Cruise, 5 foot 7 and some change, at the Writer's Guild Awards in 1998.
Credit Christopher Polk / Getty Images for AFI
Clint Eastwood, 6 foot 4, speaks onstage at the 39th AFI Life Achievement Award honoring Morgan Freeman on June 9, 2011.
Credit Andrew Medichini / AP
Cruise and his then- wife Nicole Kidman pose for photographers as they arrive at the Italian premiere of his movie Jerry Maguire in 1997.
Credit Karen Ballard / Paramount
Cruise, who is reportedly 5 foot 7 in person, plays a 6-foot-5 homicide cop in Jack Reacher.
Credit AP
6-foot-4 actor John Wayne directs a scene for the Hollywood movie The Alamo in 1959. Wayne also portrays the reportedly 6-foot-tall Davy Crockett in the movie.
Hollywood can make any actor look imposing by shooting from a low angle or building sets with short door frames. But the fact is that we want our heroes big and our villains bigger, and the average male actor is about the same size as the average American male — roughly 5 foot 9 1/2. And some very "big" stars have been a good deal less than that.
Chefs at some of the most cutting edge restaurants in the country are incorporating vegetables into their desserts in ways that, at first glance, might not seem very dessert-y.
Famous writers and their families: that's the subject of two recent biographical studies that read like novels — one a Gothic nightmare; the other, a romance.
Bag-in-the-box wine doesn't have the classiest of reputations. It's usually cheap and in the past at least, has been aimed at less sophisticated consumers. But in recent years, boxed wine has tried to buck the stereotype, whether by gussying up the product packaging or simply putting higher-quality wine in the box.
A composite image shows architect Oscar Niemeyer in 1992 (left), and one of his buildings photographed circa 1955.
Credit Mychele Daniau / AFP
"The Volcano" at Le Havre Cultural Center, France, built in 1982.
Credit David Silverman / Getty Images
The Oscar Niemeyer Museum, inaugurated in 2002, the largest museum in Latin America, is in Curitiba, the capital of the state of Parana, Brazil. Curitiba, considered an outstanding example of urban planning worldwide and the ecological capital of Brazil, was chosen as one of the 12 host cities for the 2014 soccer World Cup.
Credit Roberto Salomone / AFP/Getty Images
A pianist at Auditorium Oscar Niemeyer in Ravello on the day of its official inauguration in 2009, with Italy's Amalfi coast in the background.
Credit Evaristo Sa / AFP/Getty Images
Brasilia Cathedral was inaugurated by President Juscelino Kubitschek in 1960.
Credit Evaristo Sa / AFP/Getty Images
The interior of Brasilia Cathedral.
Credit Vanderlei Almeida / AFP/Getty Images
The Niteroi Museum of Contemporary Art near Rio de Janeiro, built in 1991.
Credit Roberto Salomone / AFP/Getty Images
Auditorium Oscar Niemeyer in Ravello, Italy, on the day of its inauguration.
Credit EVARISTO SA / AFP/Getty Images
Brasilia's National Museum, inaugurated in 1960.
Credit AFP/Getty Images
The National Congress building in Brasilia.
Credit AP
One of Oscar Niemeyer's earliest projects, built in the early 1940s, came to be known as the "Pampulha architectural complex." It was commissioned by Juscelino Kubitschek, who would later become president of Brazil. At the time, he was mayor of Belo Horizonte. The complex included a church, which was initially refused for consecration by the Roman Catholic Church.
Credit Felipe Dana / AP
The inauguration of the Oscar Niemeyer foundation building in Niteroi, Brazil, 2010.
Credit Felipe Dana / AP
Part of Niemeyer's foundation building in Niteroi, Brazil, 2010.
Credit Eraldo Peres / AP
By the late 1950s, Kubitschek was president of Brazil, and he invited Niemeyer to design many of the civic buildings in the country's new capital of Brasilia, including the Palacio da Alvorada, the official residence of Brazilian presidents, pictured here in 2006.
Credit Luis Davilla / Getty Images
Oscar Niemeyer International Cultural Center of Asturias, Spain, built in 2006.
Credit Evaristo Sa / AFP/Getty Images
The Federal Supreme Court in Brasilia.
Credit Kurt Severin / Getty Images
A church, pictured circa 1955 on the grounds of the presidential palace, is connected to the palace by an underground hallway.
Credit Christophe Ena / AP
Construction for the headquarters of the French Communist Party began in the late 1960s.
Credit Getty Images
Oscar Niemeyer in 1992 (left) and Niemeyer Center in Aviles, Spain, 2011
Credit Antonio Scorza / AFP/Getty Images
Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer looks at drawings for a project of two cities in Senegal, Africa, in his office in Rio de Janeiro, 1992.
Originally published on Fri December 7, 2012 2:27 pm
There are a number of ways to leave a legacy. Some people have kids. Some become president. Or you can build unforgettable buildings that define the landscape.
In stories by four noted authors, this year's edition of Hanukkah Lights showcases some of the program's most touching and insightful moments: Two teenagers find the formula to bridge a bitter family divide; the life of a cynical young reporter is changed by a single mysterious encounter; a reluctant grade-school student stands up for his heritage, and is wounded in the line of duty; and a despairing mom reconnects with her distant yet devoted daughter. Susan Stamberg and Murray Horwitz bring these generation-spanning tales to life.
Our first topic on the show this week follows indirectly from a correction we received about the current status of Andrew McCarthy: we talk about second acts (they do exist in American lives, you know), from child actors who now make cool videos and write great books to the complex question of whether going from
NPR's Lost Recipe project helped Pavlos re-create her great-grandmother's jumble cookies.
Credit Courtesy of Laurie Pavlos
Listener Laurie Pavlos' father, Richard Voigt, with her great-grandparents Frederick and Ethel Rickmeyer. Frederick documented many of his wife's recipes by hand in the early 1900s.
Credit Courtesy of Laurie Pavlos
In 1914, Frederick Rickmeyer documented his wife's cookie recipe on the blank memoranda pages of a cookbook.
Frederick Rickmeyer, our hats are off to you and your note-taking ways.
Shortly after the turn of the last century, Frederick started documenting his wife's recipes on the blank memoranda pages of a cookbook. He included titles like My Wife's Own Original Spanish Bun and comments like "as good as ever," along with the ingredients and dates.
Nora (Connie Britton) and Gerry (Edward Burns) pursue a fledgling romance amid a chaotic holiday homecoming in The Fitzgerald Family Christmas, another home-for-the-awkward-holidays film.
Credit Tribeca Films
Fitzgerald family patriarch Big Jim (Ed Lauter) comes home for the holiday, hoping for forgiveness from the family he abandoned years before.
There's nothing particularly special about Edward Burns' wry family drama The Fitzgerald Family Christmas –-- but that makes it something of a relief amid the avalanche of overlong, big-ticket prestige films that comes tumbling into theaters this time of year.
You've probably seen some version of this story before: A crotchety and unreliable old man, long estranged from most of his family, attempts desperately to reconnect with them on Christmas Day. It's urgent, because he's harboring a Secret with a capital S.
Based on Beth Raymer's memoir, Lay the Favorite has a cheeky, double-meaning title that sets up the story and the irreverent tone with impressive efficiency; the reference is both to the gambling practice of betting for the favorite and to the heroine's generous sexual proclivities.
