Fresh Air

The host of The Colbert Report returns to Fresh Air to talk about his new book, America Again: Re-becoming the Greatness We Never Weren't.

Critic-at-large John Powers has some thoughts on the British author and the publication of his new memoir, Joseph Anton, a chronicle of his time in hiding.

His new film The Master stars Philip Seymour Hoffman as a leader of a cult and Joaquin Phoenix as his follower. Anderson's other films include There Will Be Blood, Magnolia and Boogie Nights.

Critic David Edelstein reviews a film that may sound a lot like a campus-bound version of Glee, but has more to it than that label might suggest.

His debut novel — The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao — won a Pulitzer Prize. He was recently named as one of the 2012 recipients of a MacArthur Fellowship. (Rebroadcast from December 2007)

The Vanity Fair columnist wrote about his early career at the Village Voice in Lucking Out: My Life Getting Down and Semi-Dirty In the Seventies. (Rebroadcast from November 2011.)

If you saw Stephen Tobolowsky on the street, you might think you know him from somewhere. The character actor has appeared in over 100 films and TV shows, with recurring roles in Heroes, Deadwood, Glee and now The Mindy Project.

In his memoir, The Dangerous Animals Club, Toboloswky charts the highs and lows of life as a character actor. Some of his roles have been so small, he says, his characters didn't even have names — as, for example, with his turn as "Buttcrack Plumber."

I have a quibble with the title of David Skinner's new book, The Story of Ain't. In fact, that pariah contraction plays only a supporting role in the story. The book is really an account of one of the oddest episodes in American cultural history, the brouhaha over the appearance of Merriam-Webster's Third International Dictionary in 1961.

In 1978, it seemed that every kid in Britain wanted to be in a punk band. But in Birmingham, that blighted industrial scar in the middle of the island, there wasn't much punk to be seen. The oasis was a club called Barbarella's, and that's where Dave Wakeling and Andy Cox hung out.

In the fall of 1989, I was walking down a London street when someone handed me a flier that asked, "Should Rushdie Die?" The following afternoon, I headed over to the Royal Albert Hall to hear that question answered by a renowned Islamic scholar.