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Kevin Costner's latest film is Open Range, a western that takes the actor and director back to familiar territory. Robert Duvall and Annette Bening co-star. Los Angeles Times film critic Ken Turan offers a review.

For the past decade, author James Carroll has produced a string of nonfiction bestsellers. He returns to the novel with Secret Father, a psychological spy thriller set in Berlin during the beginning of the Cold War. Alan Cheuse has a review.

Exactly one year ago this week singer-songwriter Warren Zevon was diagnosed with a rare and inoperable form of lung cancer. He has since finished an album called The Wind. Son Jordan Zevon, the album's executive producer, talks with NPR's Scott Simon.

Barry Levinson is the director of such award-winning movies as Good Morning Vietnam and The Natural. His first novel, 66, is the story of a group of friends struggling to retain their youths while taking on adult challenges. NPR's Susan Stamberg reports.

Illusionist David Blaine has suspended himself from a crane over London's Thames River, planning to endure starvation in a glass box for 44 days. But many Londoners express boredom with Blaine's latest stunt, deeming it unoriginal. Hear Sally Pook of London's Daily Telegraph.

A sign in Springfield, Mass. warns young Latinos: "No Hangear" -- don't hang out on this corner. Spanglish -- a cross between Spanish and English -- it seems, is everywhere. NPR's Bob Edwards talks with Ilan Stavans, author of a new book, Spanglish: The Making of a New American Language. Hear a Spanglish translation of Don Quixote.

Two regular New Yorker contributors who specialize in lighter pieces talk about following in the footsteps of the magazine's legendary humorists and wits. Hear NPR's Scott Simon, screenwriter Paul Rudnick and author Susan Orlean.

Theologian Elaine Pagels has written Beyond Belief, The Secret Gospel of Thomas. The text of the gospel, discovered in 1945 in Egypt, paints a different vision of Jesus than do the Gospels that made it into the official biblical canon. Pagels speaks with NPR's John Ydstie.

The Bangles were a rock phenomenon in the early 1980s, beginning with the chart-topping hit "Walk Like An Egyptian." After a 15-year hiatus, they're back as rock 'n' roll moms. NPR's Neda Ulaby reports.

Journalist Mark Jacobson and his wife Nancy of Brooklyn, New York, thought a three-month trek around the world might remedy a serious case of teenage alienation and addiction to pop culture. Jacobson relates their travels to Thailand, Cambodia, Nepal, India, Jordan, Israel, France, and England in the book, 12,000 Miles in the Nick of Time. Jon Kalish reports. (Publisher: Canongate Books, ISBN: 0871138522)