Arts

Everywhere you go, you are data. You purchase an apple and suddenly ones and zeros are racing through the clickstream like they're wearing superhero capes. Someone, somewhere now knows more about when people eat apples, the likelihood that you will purchase one again, how they correlate to your longevity, your salary, your risk of disease. You shape the universe as you go.

What happens to underground artists after they step, blinking, into the harsh, flat light of the upper world? If they are Robert and Aline Crumb, not a whole hell of a lot — at least, not in their approach to their art. As amply demonstrated in Drawn Together, which collects comics the two cartoonists have created together since the late '70s, their specific subjects may change, but how they go about depicting those subjects — their shared impulse for autobiographical, self-deprecating logorrhea — remains constant.

Dellarobia Turnbow, the smart-mouthed heroine of Barbara Kingsolver's Flight Behavior, is frustrated by her marriage to Cub, the boy who got her pregnant in high school, and by the grinding privation of life on her in-laws' failing farm. Kingsolver mixes a story of personal awakening with themes of environmental stewardship and climate change as a freak natural phenomenon begins to transform Dellarobia's life. This exclusive excerpt exhibits one of the book's pleasures — Kingsolver's closely observed depictions of rural life — as it introduces the main characters.

Transcript

RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

It was, in the words of one specialist in recovering stolen art, a hell of a haul. The haul being the theft of seven paintings from a museum in the Netherlands, among them were works by such masters as Picasso, Monet, Matisse and Gauguin. Thieves defeated a sophisticated alarm system, lifted the canvases from the walls, and disappeared into the darkness, overnight Tuesday. It's being described as one of the biggest and most daring art heists in modern history.

From the first five minutes of Vegas, there's no mistaking its classic Western heritage — they even have Stetson-wearing heroes wrangling a herd of cattle on horseback.

The year is 1960, and nail-tough rancher Ralph Lamb has been talked into serving as the top cop in Las Vegas. Lamb's only problem: He's taking over just as the mob is trying to turn Vegas from a sleepy ranch town into the world's grown-up playground.

In Vegas, the white hats just want to run their ranches, while the black hats fight over money, gambling and power.

My first official kitchen chore, at the ripe age of 6, was to help Mom with the dal. It is one of the first dishes I learned to cook from her, and I still consider her the ultimate dal expert. Dal is sort of an umbrella term under which my family (and, I bet, most Indians) lump pulses and legumes such as lentils, beans and dried peas.

Transcript

MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:

(Reading) Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.

The famous opening line of Daphne du Maurier novel "Rebecca," which is full of lies and mysteries and deaths. Well, now a story is emerging full of lies and mysteries and a supposed death, all wrapped around a troubled plan to bring a musical version of "Rebecca" to Broadway. Federal prosecutors have now charged a Long Island stockbroker, Mark Hotton, with fraud for allegedly creating sham investors in the production, and bilking the show's producers out of $60,000.

"The whittling has finished," declared the website of the Man Booker Prize.

On Tuesday, judges awarded the prestigious literary award to Hilary Mantel for her historical novel Bring up the Bodies.

It's only a minute long, but if you don't listen to the Morning Edition story about Snoop Dogg [Lion] hyping Hot Pockets, I don't know why we even bother knowing each other.

Holy Motors, the first full-length feature in 10 years from singular French filmmaker Leos Carax, is very much a love letter to movies. But this isn't a spot-the-references extravaganza; the more movies you've seen in your lifetime, the less sense Holy Motors is likely to make.