For decades, Stanley Crouch has cut a singular path through American culture as a cultural critic and an intellectual mentor to jazz figures like Wynton Marsalis. For all of his intellectual virtuosity, we were still surprised to discover the book that Crouch wanted to recommend: Alejo Carpentier’s “Reasons of State.”More
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Arts and Culture
When he’s not drawing, Chris Ware likes to read and look at vintage comics. He highly recommends a book that defies even his powers of description — a folio-sized reproduction of some of America’s first newspaper cartoons, made long before super-heroes and adventure stories took over the medium. Back then, he says, the medium could be anything — and was.More
Cheryl Strayed’s "Wild" is one of the most famous wilderness memoirs of our time. She especially appreciates writers who combine honesty with emotional intensity — writers who reveal themselves unflinchingly on the page. She recommends a memoir by the writer Poe Ballantine.More
The Turkish writer and Nobel laureate says his favorite novel — the 800-plus-page Russian novel bursting with characters living the life of imperial Russian society — is a complex miracle of a book.More
The author of "Another Brooklyn" recommends a James Baldwin novel she says belongs on everyone's bookshelf.More
Father-daughter beatboxers Nicole Paris and Ed Cage take vocal percussion from the cradle to the stage.More
Famous for his smash hit "Don’t Worry Be Happy," Bobby McFerrin is way more than that song. McFerrin talks to Steve about an eight-year project called "Vocabularies."More
Here’s a very short taste of the power of music. It’s the Finnish acapella group Värttinä.More
Famed novelist Kazuo Ishiguro recommends “Prayers for the Stolen,” by Jennifer Clement —a harrowing tale about young children who are abducted in the midst of Mexican drug wars.More
What turned David Foster Wallace into a cult icon? He’s more famous today than when he committed suicide 7 years ago. Stephen Burn is editing Wallace's letters. He says there are two kinds of DFW fans.More
Is the American criminal justice system perpetuating racial castes? Civil rights attorney and activist Michelle Alexander breaks down the systemic racism inherent to our justice system.More
In 2005, David Foster Wallace addressed the graduating class at Kenyon College in California. Anne Strainchamps looks back at this recording and what it's come to mean to her and her family.More
Nobel Prize-winning writer Orhan Pamuk offers his take on why he writes.More
Producer Charles Monroe-Kane's son goes to a school with a 13.8% non-vaccination rate. So why aren't his neighbors vaccinating their kids? Charles went out searching for the answer.More
Feeling hopeless? How about cake recipes for the Apocalypse? Shannon O'Malley offers a few of her favorite recipes.More
How does a suburban dad with three kids find meaning in Thoreau's "Walden"? Tom Fate says Thoreau helps us examine a basic question: How much is enough?More
British novelist Zadie Smith tells Steve Paulson why she admires writers who don’t sound just like her. Her book “On Beauty” owes a lot to E.M. Forster...More
How relevant are 1001 Nights today? Well, they’re still a powerful influence for some very famous writers. Here' Turkish author, Orhan Pamuk.More