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Pulitzer prize-winning author Jane Smiley's nonfiction book A Year at the Races chronicles her lifelong love affair with horses and the race tracks where they battle to the wire.

Residents of Normandy, France, old enough to remember the 1944 invasion are being encouraged to come forward and share their memories. As the 60th anniversary of D-Day in June approaches, towns and villages across the region are holding meetings in an effort to record the testimony of those who lived through the Nazi occupation and the liberation. Alasdair Sandford reports.

This week, a researcher revealed the ancestral homeland of Elvis Presley. Three hundred years ago, Andrew Presley worked as a blacksmith in the tiny village of Lonmay, Scotland, and the modern-day residents of Lonmay are bracing for the potential windfall of tourism. NPR's Liane Hansen speaks with Christina Gibbons, owner of the village's only hotel, the Bancar.

The latest romance in Hollywood is between filmmakers and Los Angeles public schools. Location scouts say school campuses are among their favorite settings for movies, TV shows, music videos and commercials. And schools strapped for cash are grateful for their lucrative cameos. NPR's Mandalit del Barco reports.

Country legend Loretta Lynn joins forces with rocker Jack White for a soulful new CD, Van Lear Rose. Hear NPR's Melissa Block and Lynn.

Alan Cheuse reviews All That is Gone by Pramoedya Ananta Toer, translated by Willem Samuels, a collection of short fiction dramatizing aspects of 20th century Indonesia that only remain in memory. Published by Hyperion, February 2004.

Adrienne Young is a Nashville musician who makes old-fashioned songs sound new. From sparse banjo to traditional country-band backing, her brand of folk music is winning fans across generations. NPR's Melissa Block talks with Young about her debut album, Plow to the End of the Row.

Washington Post columnist Mary McGrory dies at age 85 after a long illness. McGrory won a Pulitzer Prize for her commentary during the Watergate scandal. Hear NPR's Bob Edwrds and Post columnist David Broder.

June Lockhart was a TV staple in the 1950s and '60s, playing Timmy's mom on Lassie and Maureen Robinson on Lost in Space. The actress, who recently helped open a lunchbox exhibit at the Smithsonian, takes a fun look back at those shows — and describes more recent interests: NASA and C-SPAN.

New Orleans, where roughly one-third of residents can barely read, has become the latest of several U.S. cities to use the book A Lesson Before Dying in a campaign to fight illiteracy and promote reading. Set in 1948, the novel addresses literacy, poverty and race relations in the segregated South. NPR's Bob Edwards speaks with author Ernest Gaines.