Memoir

Dear Diary

Arts, Culture & Media

We live in an age of blogs, confessional TV, and an overload of information about the private lives of celebrities. But literary self-exposure is still respectable, and more people than ever are writing old-school journals. Sara Fishko has been thumbing through a lot of diaries lately and finds there’s a unique thrill to be found […]

Design for the Real World: Tract Houses

Arts, Culture & Media

A.M. Homes

Arts, Culture & Media

Tracy K. Smith: Life on Mars

Arts, Culture & Media

The Rise and Fall and Rise of Charlie Wilson

Arts, Culture & Media

Sex, Drugs, and Chrissie Hynde

Arts, Culture & Media

In her new memoir, The Pretenders’ Chrissie Hynde reveals just how much sex, drugs, and rock and roll it took to become one of rock’s baddest women. Turns out: no more than anyone else. 

Marjane Satrapi

Arts, Culture & Media

When “Persepolis” creator Marjane Satrapi grew up in Iran during the 1979 Islamic revolution, listening to music was a political act.

Live In-Studio: The Magnetic Fields

Arts, Culture & Media

Not long ago, Stephin Merritt wrote the first “confessional” song of his life. Then he wrote 49 more.

Carrie Brownstein

Carrie Brownstein on the rise and fall of the best band ever

Arts

“Portlandia” star and rocker discusses her artistic trajectory with Sleater-Kinney.  

Mai, Tot and Ngoc Bich Ha, Cecilia Tran's mother, stand in front of an Vietnamese airplane.

A Facebook friend request brought my mom back to Vietnam after 35 years

Culture

President Barack Obama will touch down in Hanoi on Sunday. He’s just the third US president to visit since the end of the Vietnam War. This woman escaped that war — and found out that it’s never too late to heal.