NPR Staff

In this week's episode, Margaret Atwood discusses a new book of short stories, The Stone Mattress, Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim talk about their new TV series, 'Bedtime Stories,' and Sergio Mendes recalls the song that changed his life, "Mas Que Nada."

The Brazilian musician and composer says his life has been a succession of serendipitous moments. One of them led to the song that transformed his career — his first hit, "Mas Que Nada."

Ellroy's new novel, Perfidia, follows the Los Angeles police response to a brutal murder on the eve of Pearl Harbor. In a vintage steakhouse, the author discusses the book and his tech-free lifestyle.

Comedy duo Eric Wareheim and Tim Heidecker get dark in their new show on Adult Swim. "We're tired of trying to make people laugh with our humor," Heidecker says. "We want to make people cry."

Scarlett O'Hara and Rhett Butler are one of the most enduring couples in American cinema, and this year marks the 75th anniversary of their film debut in Gone with the Wind, a tale of war, love gone wrong and tragic endings. Adjusted for inflation, the epic melodrama has grossed more ...

John Darnielle is best known as the man behind The Mountain Goats, a band defined for its 20-plus years by a certain literary quality. His songs are populated with high school burnouts, bitter, broken lovers, people living on the fringe who can't escape their own ghosts.

The songwriter's ...

Everyone wants to "make a difference" but with an overwhelming array of charitable causes and organizations, the question is: how? Journalists Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn set out to find the answer in their new book, A Path Appears.

They profile a nurse in West Virginia who helps a teenage ...

The viral video trend of "unboxing" has reached the toddler demographic. One popular YouTube user has garnered millions of views on videos of opening Disney toys and other kitschy merchandise.

Her new collection, Stone Mattress, features characters still shaped by events in their youth. She's also working on a project that's all about the future: a book that won't be read for a century.

On a new tribute to Waller, Moran explores his subject's many contradictions: "The son of a preacher, the man who likes to drink, the man who finds his sorrow but expresses it through comedy."

Wendy Davis, the Democratic candidate for the governor of Texas, came to the attention of most Americans outside Texas when as state senator she filibustered a highly restrictive abortion bill for 11 straight hours.

Now Davis is making headlines for her newly released memoir, Forgetting to be Afraid. In the ...

You know the nursery rhyme:

Hey diddle diddle
The cat and the fiddle
The cow jumped over the moon.
The little dog laughed
To see such sport
And the dish ran away with the spoon.

Modern Farmer magazine, which is currently celebrating "Cow Week," took ...

Israel and the Palestinian territories are small places where there's endless fighting. Almost everyone has been touched by the bloodshed at some point and it often leads to bitterness, calls for revenge ... and more fighting.

Yet there are groups trying to break this cycle, like The Parents ...

StoryCorps' Military Voices Initiative records stories from members of the U.S. military who served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Marine Cpl. Jeff Lucey deployed to Iraq, where he was a convoy driver, in 2003. His parents, Joyce and Kevin Lucey, drove him to the deployment point in the early hours of ...

The writer dream hampton knew the rapper personally, and sat in on the studio sessions for his debut album.

The disparities in naming are partly because of translation difficulties, and partly a sign of a propaganda war. The group calls itself the Islamic State; the Obama administration goes with ISIL.

For students who don't have enough money for a hot lunch each day, visiting the cafeteria can be a source of shame. In Houston, school volunteer Kenny Thompson decided he wanted to change that.

In a new PBS documentary series, Burns turns his lens to Theodore, Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, and how each triumphed over adversity.

Thousands of families are living in schools, empty buildings and open fields after massive flooding. Although there's money to help, many are still without food, water and a dry place to sleep.

Peat the kitten quickly made a name for himself at the Glenturret Distillery in Scotland.

Officially, his job was to kill the mice attracted to the grain used in the making of whisky. And he had big paws to fill. His predecessor, Towser the Mouser, who died earlier this year, ...