May 19, 2006
Christianity as we know it is coming to an end: Sony Pictures' adaptation of Dan Brown's bestseller The Da Vinci Code is being released this week. With the help of novelist Anne Rice, Kurt Andersen tries to decode the controversy.
The novelist A.M. Homes knows how to transform tranquility into catastrophe. Yet her latest book, This Book Will Save Your Life, manages to reach a happy ending -- much to the chagrin of some critics. Kurt Andersen talks with Homes about the surreal lives of her characters and her own memoir of adoption.
They're not as rare as you might think. In fact, scientists have learned how to grow perfect diamonds in a laboratory. But that hasn't taken the shine off their allure, even for the experts who make them.
In George Saunders' new collection of short stories, In Persuasion Nation, babies wear a device to simulate witty banter. Teenagers can be hardwired to receive ads through a socket in the backs of their necks. Kurt Andersen talks with the writer about why he describes horrific things with so much humor.
Catherine Russell has been a back-up singer to the stars -- like Madonna, David Bowie, Paul Simon and Dolly Parton. Russell traces her rich musical journey from her legendary father's gig with Louis Armstrong to her new solo album, entitled Cat. Produced by Trey Kay.
Former U.S. Poet Laureate Stanley Kunitz, who died this week, tended gardens in Massachusetts for most of his 100 years. In 2001, Wesley Horner visited Kunitz in his natural habitat.
Studio 360 is a co-production of
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Radio International and
WNYC New York Public Radio, and is funded in part by
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National Endowment for the Arts, the Lily Auchincloss Foundation, and
DK Eyewitness Travel. Studio 360's American Icons series is supported in part by the
National Endowment for the Humanities. Our series on creativity and science is supported in part by the
Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Our series on Underground Heroes is supported in part by the New York State Music Fund, established by the New York State Attorney General at Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors. 
