Each week, Pop Culture Happy Hour guests and hosts share what's bringing them joy. This week: The audiobooks Mythos and Why We Love Baseball, and the new albums Jaguar II and Blame My Ex.
Red Carpet author Erich Schwartzel says that film studios increasingly need Chinese audiences to break even — which can result in self-censorship. Originally broadcast Feb. 21, 2022.
The Enchanters marks the return of Freddy O — a disgraced ex-LAPD cop and Confidential magazine dirt digger turned shifty private investigator and Hollywood fixer — and introduces Marilyn Monroe.
Drew Barrymore has been dropped as host of the upcoming National Book Awards ceremony, a day after her talk show taped its first episode since the Hollywood writers strike began.
Daughter is an intensely psychological novel, one that poses questions it doesn't, and maybe can't, answer. There are flashes of Claudia Dey's usually excellent writing, but not consistently enough.
Acclaimed author Lauren Groff's new novel, The Vaster Wilds, is about a young girl on the run during Colonial times. But the writer is really questioning — what will it take to survive today?
Author Ghassan Zeineddine's new collection of short stories, Dearborn, takes a tenderhearted look at interconnected characters in the largest Arab American community in the country
Zadie Smith's latest novel revisiting a piece of history is packed with great writing and shining passages that go from humorous to deeply philosophical. But it is also very long.
Hua Hsu won the Pulitzer Prize for Stay True, his memoir about identity, musical obsessions and the sudden tragic murder of a close friend. Originally broadcast Oct. 18, 2022.
The stories in Yiyun Li's book focus chiefly on people trying to put themselves together after loss, dealing with anguish that takes its time and rises from its dormancy at unexpected moments.
An acclaimed Irish poet deserts his sick wife and two young daughters. Anne Enright's new novel centers on the way that betrayal reverberates throughout the next generations.
Holly is a gripping crime novel — one that's very close to the traditional King horror aesthetic. The author hasn't been shy about his politics, but this is one of his most political books to date.
These new tales offer up eerie magics, mysterious buildings, tentative friendships, and a whole lot of excellent excuses for why someone's homework didn't get done.