MEMETERIA by Thomas May

Arts & Culture Stories from NPR

• Not My Job: We Quiz NASA's Swati Mohan On Planets Closer Than Mars
  Swati Mohan was the Guidance and Controls Operations Lead on the NASA Mars 2020 Mission, which successfully landed the newest Mars Rover, Perseverance, on February 18.
• To Summarize, 'Infinite Country' Can Be Frustrating
  Patricia Engels' novel about the experiences of a Colombian family migrating to the U.S. stands out for its sharp writing — but frustrates in equal measure because of its reliance on summary.
• Remembering Lawrence Ferlinghetti Through His Poetry
  Lawrence Ferlinghetti, who died Feb. 22 at age 101, wrote a string of verses called "What is Poetry." We remember him by excerpting some lines.
• 'Amend' Brings History Of The 14th Amendment To Life
  NPR's Scott Simon speaks with Larry Wilmore about his new Netflix docu-series, Amend: The Fight for America," about the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
• 'It's Hard To Leave Him': 'Sympathizer' Spy Story Continues In 'The Committed'
  Viet Thanh Nguyen's Pulitzer Prize-winning spy novel The Sympathizer told the story of a communist double agent just after the Vietnam War — his quest for revolution resumes in The Committed.
• Will Nico Walker Watch 'Cherry?' Probably Not
  The new movie Cherry follows an Iraq war vet who gets addicted to heroin and starts robbing banks. It's based on a semi-autobiographical novel by Nico Walker, who was just released from prison.
• Love May Be 'For Losers,' But This Book Is For Everyone
  Wibke Brueggemann's charmingly snarky YA novel follows teenaged Phoebe as she recovers from the Worst New Year's Ever and learns that not all of life's answers can be found via Google.
• Housing Projects And Empty Lots. How Chanell Stone Is Reframing Nature Photography
  Chanell Stone wants to change how people think about nature photography. "As Black people, it feels like these rural spaces aren't for us," she says. "I want to turn that idea on its head."
• Movie Review: 'The Father'
  An elderly pensioner, played by Anthony Hopkins, refuses all assistance, to the distress of his daughter, played by Olivia Colman, in the dementia drama The Father.
• The Legacies Of Black Icons Sam Cooke, Muhammad Ali (Cassius Clay) And Malcolm X
  The film One Night in Miami imagines a night in 1964 where Cooke, Clay, Malcolm X and Jim Brown meet. We listen back to interviews with biographers Peter Guralnick, Jonathan Eig and Alex Haley.