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Books
1:53 pm
Wed July 4, 2012

The 5 Best Book Stories You Must Read This Week

Credit iStockphoto.com
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Originally published on Wed July 4, 2012 5:15 pm

If you're like me, you probably have stacks of books sitting around your home waiting to be cracked open.

Despite my apartment's messy milieu, the piles are actually carefully curated in the order of what I plan to tackle next. Of course, the stacks tend to grow faster than I can read, but no matter.

Here are this week's five best stories from NPR Books. They'll grow your piles, but I promise, these books are worth it.

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Middle East
12:55 pm
Wed July 4, 2012

Medical Marijuana Use Sprouting In Israel

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Credit Uriel Sinai / Getty Images
Moshe Rute smokes cannabis at the Hadarim nursing home in Kibutz Naan, Israel. In conjunction with Israel's Health Ministry, the Tikkun Olam company is distributing cannabis for medicinal purposes to more than 1,800 people in Israel.
Credit Baz Ratner / Reuters /Landov
A worker tends to cannabis plants at a plantation in northern Israel. Researchers say they have developed marijuana that can be used to ease the symptoms of some ailments without getting patients high.
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Originally published on Sun July 8, 2012 7:33 am

Israel has become a world leader in the use of medical marijuana. More than 10,000 patients have received government licenses to consume the drug to treat ailments such as cancer and chronic pain.

But while the unorthodox treatment has gained acceptance in Israel, it still has its critics.

Susan Malkah breathes in the cloud of smoke from a plastic inhaler especially formulated for medical marijuana use. She has a number of serious ailments and is confined to a wheelchair.

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World Cafe
12:45 pm
Wed July 4, 2012

Neil Young On World Cafe

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Neil Young.
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Neil Young's dozens of albums and myriad side projects showcase his incredible range and stylistic flexibility. His music has gone from the soft folk of Buffalo Springfield and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young to the loud, raucous rock of Crazy Horse.

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Thistle and Shamrock
11:43 am
Wed July 4, 2012

Thistle And Shamrock: New Releases

Credit Courtesy of the artist
Annbjorg Lien
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Hear the best of emerging sounds, styles and artists with host Fiona Ritchie and her batch of brand new releases from Celtic roots.

Copyright 2012 National Public Radio. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

Arts & Life
11:24 am
Wed July 4, 2012

The Highwaymen: Segregation And Speed-Painting In The Sunshine State

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Credit Courtesy of Gary Monroe
Credit Courtesy of Gary Monroe
The Highwaymen are a group of African-American artists based in Fort Pierce, Fla., who began painting in the 1960s. (Clockwise from top left: Harold Newton, James Gibson, Mary Ann Carroll and Al Black are just a few.)
Credit Courtesy of the A.E. Backus Museum and Gallery
A.E. Backus with friends in his Fort Pierce studio
Credit Jacki Lyden / NPR
Highwaymen paintings hang in the background at Jetson's Appliance store in Florida.
Credit Alfred Hair / Courtesy of Gary Monroe
Credit Courtesy of the A.E. Backus Museum and Gallery
Spanish Bayonets on the Indian River. This painting by A.E. Backus suggests an influence on The Highwaymen
Credit Courtesy of Mary Ann Carroll/Gary Monroe/University Press of Florida
A painting by Mary Ann Carroll, one of 26 painters known as The Highwaymen, who were inducted into the Florida Artists Hall of Fame in 2004.
Credit Courtesy of Gary Monroe
Mary Ann Carroll is, to this day, the only female member of The Highwaymen. She is also a pastor, when she isn't painting, at her own church in Fort Pierce, Fla.
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Originally published on Wed July 4, 2012 3:03 pm

In the 1960s and '70s, if you were in a doctor's office, or a funeral home, or a motel in Florida, chances are a landscape painting hung on the wall. Palms arching over the water, or moonlight on an inlet. Tens of thousands of paintings like this were created by a group of self-taught African-American artists, concentrated in Fort Pierce, Fla.

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