Any tour of Brighton, England, has to begin at the Royal Pavilion, according to crime writer Peter James. Built by a king for his mistress 200 years ago, its Taj Mahal-like spires are the city's best-known landmark.
James' latest novel, Not Dead Yet, features — spoiler alert! — a pivotal scene in the pavilion's dining room, with its one-and-a-half ton crystal chandelier. Without giving too much away — the book won't be released in the U.S. until November – let's just say it might have something to do with the aforementioned chandelier.
Fans leave all manner of mementos at Andy Warhol's grave site, near Pittsburgh. This spring, a local Warhol impersonator wrapped the grave stone in colorful paper for an entire month.
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Bagpipe player Dave Olson makes visiting the grave part of his regular routine.
Andy Warhol is often remembered as larger than life, but it's all too easy to miss where he's buried.
The pop artist's grave is in the modest St. John the Baptist Byzantine Catholic Cemetery, on a hill overlooking a highway about 20 minutes outside of downtown Pittsburgh.
Eric Shiner, director of the Andy Warhol Museum, says it's a pretty typical cemetery for Pennsylvanians with Eastern European roots.
Over the past decade, there's been a revival in popular histories of ancient Rome; not the academic tomes once reserved for specialists and students, but books and movies designed for the rest of us.
Anthony Everitt has written three biographies about some of the major players in ancient Rome: Cicero, Augustus and Hadrian, all full of intrigue and treachery.
Marilyn Monroe died 50 years ago Sunday at the age of 36. Host Linda Wertheimer speaks with film expert Murray Horwitz about Monroe's film legacy and her comedic skills.
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Credit Herb Swanson for NPR
Artist Andrea Polli listens to modified bat sounds through a glass vessel inspired by Helmholtz resonators at the Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historic Park in Woodstock, Vt.
For the past five years, bats have been disappearing at an alarming rate, falling prey to a mysterious disease called white-nose syndrome. But they're making an eerie comeback in a new audio exhibit at a national park in Vermont. The exhibit features manipulated recordings of bat calls that are funneled through glass vessels hanging from a studio ceiling.
Designed by Chip Kidd, the book jacket for Haruki Murakami's 1Q84, when removed, reveals a woman's face.
Credit Courtesy of Chip Kidd/Alfred A. Knopf
1Q84 by Haruki Murakami: "This epic, complex story begins when a woman named Aomame in 1984 Tokyo has a revelation that she has entered a universe parallel to our own. She calls it 'Q' for question, and in Japanese, Q rhymes with 9. I wanted to represent these two planes of existence with the book's jacket and its paper binding underneath."
Credit Courtesy of Chip Kidd/Alfred A. Knopf
"The jacket is made of a semi-transparent vellum and holds part of the woman's image within the lettering of the title. Underneath is the complimentary image on the binding, and together they 'complete the reality.' Even if you don't know anything about the book when you first see it, you are forced to consider the concept of one person 'stradling' two states of being."
Credit Courtesy of Chip Kidd/Alfred A. Knopf
The Learners by Chip Kidd: "Since the narrator is essentially me, the cover is a kind of self-portrait — only I'm a terrible draftsman. So I hired the cartoonist and illustrator Charles Burns to draw it, and Chris Ware did the lettering. This is really intended to be 'The Scream' as rendered by two of the best contemporary artists in America."
Credit Courtesy of Chip Kidd/Alfred A. Knopf
Life Upon These Shores by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.: "The author wanted an image 'out of time,' not specific to any one era, because the book spans centuries. I culled the conceptual emphasis from the word 'Looking' in the subtitle, and then augmented that with basic elements of the American flag."
Credit Courtesy of Chip Kidd/Alfred A. Knopf
American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis: "It always bothered me that the original cover of this book showed the main character's face so clearly straight-on. In fiction covers, I always want to give readers the chance to create what the characters look like in their minds as they read."
Credit Courtesy of Chip Kidd/Alfred A. Knopf
The Mind's Eye by Oliver Sacks: "This book by the renown neuro-scientist is about how eyesight works in the brain and how it doesn't. When the author goes to the optometrist for a checkup and the eye chart starts doing strange things, he knows there is a problem. It spurs him on to research the miraculous phenomena of how we see."
Credit Courtesy of Chip Kidd
Chip Kidd, an associate art director at publisher Alfred A. Knopf, has written a new graphic novel called Batman: Death by Design.
In the olden days, a reader might pick up a book because the cover was exciting, intriguing, maybe even beautiful. But in the brave new world of e-books and e-readers, the days when an artist named Chip Kidd could make us reach for a book may be gone.
On-air challenge: You are given two five-letter words. Put the same pair of letters in front of each of them to complete two familiar seven-letter words. The letters that go in front will never be a standard prefix, like "re-." For example, given "quire" and "tress," the answer would be "ac" to make "acquire" and "actress."
Sens. Thomas Eagleton (left) and George McGovern celebrate their candidacy for vice president and president, respectively, at the Democratic National Convention in 1972.
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Joshua M. Glasser is a researcher for Bloomberg Television in New York.
Sometime before the end of the month, when Republicans hold their convention in Tampa, Fla., Mitt Romney will announce his vice presidential running mate.
There's a good chance the finalists for that spot are wading through mountains of paperwork, and answering deeply personal questions about finances, past statements, friendships — and medical history.
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Architect Eliel Saarinen's First Christian Church (1942) helped launch a design revolution in Columbus, Ind. Nearly 30 years later, as part of that same movement, sculptor Henry Moore created the 20-foot-tall Large Arch as a piece of art that could be walked through and around.
Credit Don Nissen / Columbus Area Visitors Center
Designed by Don M. Hisaka in 1990, Columbus' brick and limestone Bartholomew County Jail is one of many public buildings to come out of the town's architectural fever.
Credit Columbus Area Visitors Center
The Columbus Signature Academy Fondrea Campus primary school was designed by Paul Kennon in 1973 as a "people-centered" school to be used for both education and community gatherings.
Credit Chris Smith / Columbus Area Visitors Center
Architect Eliel Saarinen's First Christian Church (1942) helped launch a design revolution in Columbus, Ind. Nearly 30 years later, as part of that same movement, sculptor Henry Moore created the 20-foot-tall Large Arch as a public art work that could be walked through and around.
Credit Indianapolis Museum / Columbus Area Visitors Center
The house Will Miller grew up in was designed by Eero Saarinen on a grid in which each corner is used for a space that requires privacy, including the master, family and guest bedrooms.
Credit Indianapolis Museum / Columbus Area Visitors Center
Inside, the sunken "conversation pit" allows for plenty of seating without visual clutter. Architect and designer Alexander Girard worked with Will Miller's mother, Xenia Miller, on the house's interior decoration, which includes a selection of textiles that changes seasonally and a 50-foot-long storage wall.
Credit Rhonda Bolner / Columbus Area Visitors Center
Eero Saarinen also designed the North Christian Church, which was completed in 1964, three years after Saarinen's death. Along with the First Christian Church and the Miller house, North Christian is one of Columbus' six national historic landmarks.
Credit Brian Santa Maria / iStockphoto.com
This summer, NPR's Destination Art series is going off the beaten path to visit small to midsize North American cities that have cultivated lively arts scenes. We want to hear from you! Where's your favorite art hot spot? What makes it unique? Tell us about it.
Credit Don Nissen / Columbus Area Visitors Center
Across from the First Christian Church, I.M. Pei's Cleo Rogers Memorial Library boasts a waffled concrete ceiling that, with help from an elaborate intake system, uses heat from the ceiling lights to warm the building in winter months.
Credit Courtesy of Cummins Engine Company
When J. Irwin Miller began working at Cummins in 1934, his responsibilities included opening the mail. He went on to transform the company through innovations in management, marketing and production.
Credit Don Nissen / Columbus Area Visitors Center
Part of Zaharakos restoration involved replacing its '50s-era storefront with a 19th-century design that better matched its interior. The result can feel anachronistic, considering the town's more contemporary claims to fame.
Columbus, Ind., looks like any other small town, with its small shops and restaurants. But what sets this town apart is its architecture.
The Modernist buildings — mostly geometric and made of glass and steel — are not immediately visible, interspersed as they are with old, 19th-century, gingerbread-like structures; but more than 60 public buildings in Columbus have been built by a veritable who's who of modern masters — I.M. Pei, Eero and Eliel Saarinen, Cesar Pelli, Richard Meier, Harry Weese, Robert Venturi and James Polshek, to name a few.
Mali's popular Festival of the Desert, held each year near Timbuktu, attracts both local and international music stars. The festival took place in January, but the Islamists who have taken control of the area have since banned all entertainment.
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A Tuareg band from Mali, Tinariwen, performs in Nice, France, in July. The band has developed an international reputation and won a Grammy this year. See them perform at NPR headquarters.
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This video still shows Islamist militants destroying an ancient shrine in Timbuktu on July 1. The International Criminal Court warned their campaign of destruction was a war crime.
Mali is a country rich in culture, both old and new.
The banging of hammers on silver echos through the main crafts market in Bamako, Mali's capital. It's usually teeming in a place where you can buy anything, from silver earrings to batik fabric, all of it handmade.
And despite its remote location, Mali has enhanced its cultural reputation in recent years with an annual international music and arts festival in the Sahara Desert near Timbuktu, drawing both African and Western artists.
The Goo Goo Cluster, a classic gooey treat from Nashville, Tenn., celebrates its 100th birthday this year.
Credit Courtesy of Goo Goo Cluster
Minnie Pearl and Roy Acuff perform in front of a Goo Goo Cluster advertisement at the Grand Ole Opry, circa 1976. Coincidentally, Pearl's 100th birthday is also in October.
No one's entirely sure where the Southern treat called the Goo Goo Cluster got its name.
The iconic candy from Nashville, Tenn., celebrates its 100th birthday this year. The confection of marshmallow, peanuts and caramel wrapped in milk chocolate may owe its longevity in part to another Nashville icon: the Grand Ole Opry.
Goo Goo Cluster sponsored the venue's radio broadcasts from 1966 until 2006. In one popular advertisement, stage performers crooned, "Go get a Goo Goo ... it's gooooooood!"
Real-life Hollywood couple Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard are a.) famous b.) adorable c.) funny d.) the stars of Hit and Run, a new movie they made together,and e.) amazingly, all of the above.
Credit Lee Toland Krieger / Sony Pictures Classics
"This is a story about your first love," says Jones. "Can you take it with you, can it still be a part of your life, can you integrate it into your life? Do you have to let them go forever to move on?"
Credit David Lanzenberg / Sony Pictures Classics
"This is a story about your first love," says Jones. "Can you take it with you, can it still be a part of your life, can you integrate it into your life? Do you have to let them go forever to move on?"
Credit Lee Toland Krieger / Sony Pictures Classics
Rashida Jones and Andy Samberg are Celeste and Jesse, a couple who try to stay friends after their marriage ends. Jones co-wrote Celeste and JesseForever with Will McCormack, who has a supporting role in the film.
Don't be fooled by the title of Rashida Jones' new movie: It's called Celeste and Jesse Forever, but Celeste and Jesse, played by Jones and Andy Samberg, are not forever — in fact, they're getting divorced. And they have a weird way of dealing with it: They keep spending time together as if they were best friends.
Jeremy Renner stars in The Bourne Legacy, the latest in a franchise previously fronted by Matt Damon. But when an actor departs a Hollywood cash cow, it can be less a death knell than a chance for rejuvenation.
Credit Mary Cybulski / Universal Pictures
Now Jeremy Renner takes over the franchise (though not as Jason Bourne) with The Bourne Legacy, which opens on Aug. 10.
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Richard Harris' tenure as Professor Dumbledore in the Harry Potter series was cut short by his death in 2002.
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Daniel Craig has played Bond since 2006's Casino Royale. Six actors have played the licensed-to-kill agent on the big screen.
Credit Jasin Boland / AP
Matt Damon played Jason Bourne three times, starting in 2002 with The Bourne Identity and ending in 2007 with The Bourne Ultimatum.
Credit AP
Sean Connery, seen here in Tokyo filming 1966's You Only Live Twice, was the first actor to play James Bond in 1962's Dr. No.
The Bourne Legacy, which opens in theaters this week, is the fourth thriller in the series, and the first without either Jason Bourne or the star playing him, Matt Damon. They're suddenly not necessary, even though the series is named for Bourne? Why am I not surprised?