NPR Programs: Fresh Air Podcast

Darren Aronofsky's latest film is a big-budget Bible story called, simply, Noah. Russell Crowe plays the title character, and the movie also features Jennifer Connelly and Emma Watson.

Last Sunday, the CBS drama delivered something major and unexpected. If you don't know what happened, and don't wish to, you may not want to listen, but Fresh Air's critic has a lot to say about it.

In a his book, historian Bruce Levine says that from the destruction of the South emerged an entirely new country, making the Civil War equivalent to a second American Revolution.

While Breaking Bad fans were watching him portray Walt in the series' final episodes, Cranston was already reinventing himself — playing Lyndon B. Johnson in the play All the Way.

In his short story collection, former Marine Phil Klay takes his experience in Iraq and clarifies it, lucidly tracing the moral, political and psychological curlicues of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Karen Russell's new book imagines a mysterious insomnia epidemic so serious that many are dying from lack of sleep. But the cure — sleep donations from babies — is hard to swallow.

Teju Cole's latest book describes a young New York doctor's visit back to his Nigerian hometown, where he encounters a Clockwork Orange world of misery and corruption.

For those who viewed the end of the Soviet Union as a tragedy, Crimea was a chance to showcase Russia's strength. Now Russia may have changed its relationship with the outside world for years to come.

On Feb. 5, 1953, Powell was uncommunicative face to face at the New York jazz club Birdland. But when he sat at the keys, it was a whole other story.

Humor is both a creative and a cognitive process, says Bob Mankoff, who has contributed cartoons to The New Yorker since 1977. His memoir is called How About Never — Is Never Good For You?

Author Walter Kirn explores the depths of Clark Rockefeller's deception, mezzo-soprano Dolora Zajick reflects on her career and Lloyd Schwartz shares a poem about friendship and loss.

Charlotte Gainsbourg and newcomer Stacy Martin anchor Lars von Trier's four-hour inquiry into the nature of impulse and desire.

Adrian Raine argues that violent behavior has biological roots just like depression or schizophrenia. This raises questions about treatment, accountability and punishment, including the death penalty.

Surrounded on the charts by younger men and their big hits about drinking and partying, Sara Evans' hit-single success of Slow Me Down's title song all the more heartening.

America's Test Kitchen knows how to make gluten-free food taste just as good as the regular stuff. They tell Fresh Air about the best packaged pasta, and the secrets of gluten-free baking.