Places & Travel

Growing up in the tribal region of Pakistan, Maria Toorpakai pretended she was a boy in order to compete as a weightlifter. Later she became an internationally known squash player.

The Irish director and screenwriter talks to Fresh Air's Ann Marie Baldonado about his new film, which tells the story of a young teenager in 1980s Dublin who discovers pop music and starts a band.

In his new memoir, Under The Big Black Sun: A Personal History Of L.A. Punk, John Doe of the band X brings together his own essays and stories from other musicians and scene-makers of that time. A conversation with Doe, with his bandmate Exene Cervenka, and with Dave Alvin of the Blasters who played with X for a short time.

At the age of 85, Edna O'Brien has just brought out one of her best and most ambitious novels yet. The Little Red Chairs is personal and political; charming and grotesque; a novel of manners and a novel of monsters.

Neon Bull is set amidst Brazil's version of rodeo, the vaquejada by film maker Gabriel Mascaro.

Arnaud Desplechin's new film centers on the memories of a middle-aged Frenchman who returns to Paris after years of living abroad. Critic John Powers says My Golden Days is "achingly romantic."

According to Adam Hochschild, about 2,800 Americans fought in the Spanish Civil War, and some were bombed by Nazis years before the U.S. entered World War II. His new book is Spain in Our Hearts.

Journalist Adam Hochschild tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross that "it was by far the largest number of Americans before or since who've ever joined somebody else's civil war."

A new release by Legacy revisits the hits of Them, the band George Ivan Morrison played in before he became Van Morrison. Ed Ward remembers the band's brief existence.

Tina Fey plays a neophyte reporter charged with covering the Afghanistan occupation in Whiskey Tango Foxtrot. Critic David Edestein says the film isn't bad, so much as "shapeless and blandly apolitical."

Tobias Lindholm's Oscar-nominated film tells the story of a Danish commander's error in judgment during the war in Afghanistan. Critic David Edelstein says A War will "leave you in pieces."

The cartels' business models are similar to those of big-box stores and franchises, says Tom Wainwright, former Mexico City bureau chief for The Economist. His new book is Narconomics.

George Miller's latest Mad Max film, Fury Road, has been nominated for 10 Academy Awards, but the director still isn't sure how the movie will hold up over time.

The new period comedy by Joel and Ethan Coen takes place backstage at a 1950s Hollywood studio. Reviewer David Edelstein says that despite flashes of brilliance, the film "feels thin."

Bassem Youssef created what became the most popular TV show in Egypt's history, but the government had the show cancelled, and Youssef fled Egypt.

CNN's Peter Bergen describes how the Internet and social media have been used to radicalize and recruit Americans to jihad — and how some new jihadists then use those same tools to draw in others.

Journalist Mei Fong tells Fresh Air that China's one-child policy drastically reshaped the country's demographic make-up. "China has 30 million more men than women," she says. Her book is One Child.

New Yorker writer Steve Coll says that though Tillerson has conducted billion-dollar international deals as an oil executive, he has no government experience

"We think it's all a bit vulgar, you know, cashing in on Christmas," Lowe says of the British. He says he took it as a challenge: Quality Street tackles old classics and adds originals to the mix.
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The Iranian-born photographer told Fresh Air in 2015 that he was less interested in personal belief than in "what people do in the name of God." Abbas died in Paris on April 25.

In Richard Ford's brilliant collection of four short stories, protagonist Frank Bascombe returns to be "frank" about touchy topics. His awareness, particularly of mortality, is profound and hilarious.