Search results for

NPR's Jacki Lyden speaks with writer Jean Nathan about the haunting, true story behind the children's book, The Lonely Doll. The book, a classic for more than 35 years, was written and photographed by Dare Wright, an ethereal, child-like beauty who never separated from her mother and kept her own toy doll Edith close at hand for more than 60 years. Nathan's article The Secret Life of the Lonely Doll appears in the latest issue of the new literary magazine Tin House.

Lisa visits with Ray Materson, one of the artists featured in the exhibition Treasures of the Soul: Who is Rich? at Baltimore's Visionary Art Museum. The show focuses on art made from things that have little value in themselves -- telephone wires, sock threads, or plastic beads. Materson crafts intricate tiny pictures from sock threads. Check out Materson's Web site at: www.avam.org

NPR's Alex Chadwick profiles photographer Luis Marden for The Geographic Century series, a co-production of NPR and The National Geographic Society. Marden was a pioneering photographer for much of the 20th century. Among other things, he discovered the wreck of the Bounty.

In part one of a three part series looking back on the Iran hostage crisis NPR's Ted Clark reports that twenty years ago this week, Iranian students stormed the U.S embassy in Tehran. Fifty-two Americans were held hostage for 444 days.

Commentator Baxter Black sings his version of "The Twelve Days of Christmas."

Lisa talks with attorney Kevin Underhill about his spoofs of great literature. He's rewritten parts of the Book of Job, Ulysses and Moby Dick in the language of 'legalese.' He also wrote a legalese version of the Twelve Days of Christmas. His original spoofs can be found at www.greenbag.org.

We invited listeners to phone us at 202-408-0300 and tell us about recordings they have saved, from their families, friends, public figures. Quest for Sound Curator Jay Allison tells us how we might use their material and why we care.

An independent panel headed by retired Navy Adm. Harold Gehman takes over the Columbia investigation. Meanwhile, a joint House-Senate hearing launches a congressional investigation into why the space shuttle broke apart upon re-entry Feb. 1. NPR's Larry Abramson reports.

In the first of an occasional series on Young People and Religion, Lynn Neary reports on members of Generation X who are filling two very different churches in Seattle. One is a borrowed space in which traditional doctrine is celebrated to a rock music beat. The other uses ancient ritual but adheres to less traditional teachings.

In the final part of a two-part series, NPR's Madeleine Brand concludes the report on the Supermax prison in Boscobel, Wis. The facility is full of solitary confinement cells, and is one of about three dozen such prisons in the country, which are designed to house inmates who are too disruptive and violent for maximum security prisons.