Search results for

WBGO Morning Jazz host Gary Walker shares his favorite jazz recordings of 2007. Among the artists he singles out: Michael Brecker, Abbey Lincoln, Maria Schneider and Ron Carter.

NPR's Lynn Neary talks with book writers — Laura Miller of Salon.com, and blogger Mark Sarvas of The Elegant Variation — about worthy books that got overlooked by the mainstream book-review sections in 2007. Here's a rundown of their recommendations.

About 2 percent of India's population are Christian, but Christmas is seeping into India's culture as a shopping holiday. India is a predominately Hindu country with a large Muslim minority.

Crumpet the Elf, better known as writer David Sedaris, is back for another holiday visit. Sedaris first read from his Santaland Diaries, about his experience working as an elf at Macy's, 15 years ago. That reading helped launch his career as a novelist, playwright and humorist.

BBC correspondent Alan Johnston, who was abducted in the Gaza Strip earlier this year and held for nearly four months, writes a book about his ordeal. Kidnapped: And Other Dispatches describes his ordeal. He says a radio brought by guards offered a lifeline and psychological boost.

Pakistan's M2 highway, as wide and clean as a freshly minted air strip, has become an unexpected obsession. It has six lanes that carve a path across the plains of the Punjab, from the city of Lahore to the capitol Islamabad and beyond. The M2 is South Asia's first motorway.

Across America, wineries and tasting rooms can be found in converted buildings — a bordello in Arizona, a cotton gin in Texas, a church in Ohio. There's even a tasting room in an Alaska shopping center.

After Pearl Harbor, about 120,000 Japanese Americans were uprooted and forced to live for years in federal camps. Internment changed the traditional Japanese diet and erased the family table.

For years, Michele Norris has wondered what exactly figgy pudding is. To find out more about the Christmas treat that generations of carolers have demanded, she invited baking expert Dorie Greenspan to her kitchen to prepare the dessert.

When radio ruled the airwaves, Nashville station WSM was a broadcasting powerhouse. Started in 1925, it became a cultural force that shaped the future of Nashville, largely because of its signature program, The Grand Ole Opry.