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Jazz musicians today find profound inspiration in a lot of different places, from Chicago to rural Louisiana prisons, and from old standards to biology class. Hear new music from Howard Wiley, Rebecca Martin, Henry Threadgill and the band Herculaneum.

In 1971, the FBI put John Lennon under surveillance because of his anti-war activities. The INS tried to deport him a year later. Historian Jon Wiener spoke to Terry Gross in 2000 about the Nixon administration's campaign to deport Lennon — and then Wiener's own fight to get the FBI to release Lennon's files.

For his 22nd novel, celebrated author and former intelligence officer John le Carre found inspiration in a real Russian criminal. Our Kind Of Traitor details the shady activities of a crime lord named Dima operating in Moscow's underworld of dirty money.

Darryl Pendergrass, his wife and their two boys live on his $43,000-a-year salary, right about the median income for the state. But because of state budget shortfalls, he hasn't had a raise in five years. His wife says that has meant giving up some of the niceties they once enjoyed.

British magazine The New Statesman has published a previously unseen poem by Ted Hughes. Called "Last Letter," the poem deals with the three days leading up to the suicide of his first wife, fellow poet Sylvia Plath.

All aboard, armchair travelers! In Book Lust to Go, our go-to librarian shares her favorite accounts of intrepid exploration and fiction from faraway lands.

Abigail Adams said that "simple truth" was George Washington's "greatest eulogy," and Ron Chernow proves it in his captivating new biography. Chernow keeps his distance from the founding father's mythology, and instead examines his foibles and triumphs.

In his new novel, Philip Roth sets a fictional yet plausible polio outbreak in his New Jersey hometown. Set in 1944, Nemesis describes the fear that plagued the country in the years before the vaccine was developed.

James Franco doesn't just spend his time acting in the movies. The star of Milk, Howl and the forthcoming 127 Hours is also an accomplished writer and graduate student. He explains how he juggles his many roles — and why he continues to take on new challenges.

Gustave Flaubert was an apostle of le mot juste — using exactly the right word. Lydia Davis elegantly translates his masterpiece, Madame Bovary, in the same spirit. Davis' words lure readers back into Emma Bovary's sexy, scandalous and tragic tale.