It seems like every Republican presidential campaign right now is doubling as a book tour (Michele Bachmann’s Core of Conviction: My Story, Ron Paul’s Liberty Defined, Rick Perry’s Fed Up!: Our Fight to Save America from Washington). But this double duty is nothing new for candidate Newt Gingrich ...

Bonus Track: An Historian’s Analysis

As events unfolded in Arizona this week, novelist Walter Kirn turned to Twitter to express what he was seeing and feeling. Kirn tells Kurt he fears that our digital world is breeding characters who are unhinged from reality.

Oscar-nominated film, "Up in the Air," tells a story made for the recession. George Clooney plays a corporate grim reaper, flying all over the country to lay off his clients' employees. Director Jason Reitman ("Juno") based it on the 2001 novel by