NPR Programs: Fresh Air Podcast

In his new book, Dr. Kevin Fong explores how humans survive extremes of heat, cold, outer space and deep sea. "We're still exploring the human body and what medicine can do in the same way that the great explorers of the 20th century and every age before them explored the world," he says.

Church uses the power he's accrued from hit records to make exactly the kind of album he wants.

Kayla Williams and Brian McGough met in Iraq in 2003 when they were serving in the 101st Airborne Division. Williams' new memoir, Plenty of Time When We Get Home, describes their homecoming after McGough sustained physical and cognitive injuries during an IED explosion.

Project Runway's Tim Gunn "makes it work," John Powers says Borgen is Denmark's West Wing (but better), and Jennifer Senior explores the trials and triumphs of parenting in her book All Joy and No Fun.

George Clooney's film tells the largely true story of a World War II squad of art experts assigned to protect European masterworks from Nazi theft and Allied bombardment. Critic David Edelstein says the film is engaging and earnest, but a little formulaic.

On Feb. 7, 1964, the Beatles touched down at JFK airport. To mark the day, we'll listen back to a 1995 interview with Ringo Starr and a 2001 interview with Paul McCartney.

Penny Penny put down his broom and picked up a mic for his 1994 debut, now reissued.

The U.S. needs to start treating the Internet like electricity or railroads, law professor and author Susan Crawford says. "We can't create a level playing field for all Americans or indeed compete on the world stage without having some form of government involvement," she says.

Alena, a reworking of Daphne DuMaurier's Rebecca, takes place in the contemporary art world, while The Yellow Eyes of Crocodiles is a "delicious French romp." Critic Maureen Corrigan says both novels are "exquisite vehicles of escape fiction."

"Make it work," the fashion guru tells designers on Project Runway. But life hasn't always "worked" for Gunn. He talks with Terry Gross about being bullied, being gay in the '60s and '70s, and how his mother thinks he should "dress more like Mitt Romney."

Critic John Powers says that Borgen, a Danish TV series about a woman who unexpectedly becomes Denmark's prime minister is "irresistibly bingeable." The third and final season has just been released on DVD.

Kids can be magical and maddening. The title of Jennifer Senior's book — All Joy and No Fun — contrasts the strains of day-to-day parenting with the transcendent experience of raising a child.

We listen back to interviews with Hoffman from 1999 and 2008, when he told Fresh Air's Terry Gross that carrying the emotional life of a character could be "burdensome." He was found dead on Sunday at age 46.

Patchett reflects on her first marriage, the sports writer looks at the myth of the "dumb" football player and Ken Tucker considers the challenge of keeping country music commercially viable.

Diane Johnson often writes about American heroines living in France, but when she began her memoir, she found herself drawn back to her native ground in America's heartland. Critic Maureen Corrigan says Flyover Lives "lets scenes and conversations speak for themselves, accruing power as they lodge in readers' minds."