Arts & Culture

Kumail Nanjiani and Emily Gordon created a film about their very unusual courtship called The Big Sick, so we've invited them to play a game called "The Big Chick" — three questions about Big Bird. They've recently launched a podcast called Staying In with Emily & Kumail to help people get through the long days of coronavirus quarantine.

Click the audio link above to find out how they do.

Julia Alvarez has written what she calls her first novel as "an elder."

"It took a while to sort of process this stage of life that I'm in," she says. "And you know, what are the stories that I can tell now, from the hindsight and the insights that I've gained that is different. And you have to, you know, learn that."

The author of beloved and bestselling novels for adults and children, including How the García Girls Lost Their Accents and In the Time of the Butterflies, has brought out her first novel for adults in a decade and a half.

NPR's Scott Simon speaks with author C Pam Zhang about her debut novel, which follows two sisters brought from China to the California Gold Rush by their father, who dies soon after they arrive.

Rebecca Dinerstein Knight's strange and delightful second novel, Hex, opens with its protagonist in crisis. Nell Barber is an ex-doctoral student at Columbia; her lab, which studied toxins, has been disbanded after a student accidentally poisons herself, and now Nell is floating through New York, grief-stricken and in need of work. She's also profoundly lovesick for her dissertation advisor, a magnetic young botanist named Dr. Joan Kallas. Without Joan's "absolutely necessary nearness," Nell is undone.

Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

AILSA CHANG, HOST:

Take a trip to the grocery store and you may notice staple products are missing. For some people, that includes yeast - those little envelopes with the pellets that make bread rise.

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

After journeying through worlds unknown to humankind, a bearded and weathered Fact Bag has returned with a brand new set of facts. Facts about interstellar crimes. Facts about Chicken McNugget shapes. Now, Fact Bag can rest. Thank you, Fact Bag. For everything. Featuring Stay F. Homekins hosts Paul F. Tompkins and Janie Haddad Tompkins.

Comedians Naomi Ekperigin and Andy Beckerman, hosts of the podcast Couples Therapy, name everyday items as described by the item's patent.

Heard on Debra Messing & Paul F Tompkins: Show Yourself Some Grace.

Comedian couple Naomi Ekperigin and Andy Beckerman host Couples Therapy, a podcast where they invite comedians and performers to talk about their relationships. In this audio quiz, Naomi and Andy hear the blues a-callin' in this quiz on fictional television therapists.

Heard on Debra Messing & Paul F Tompkins: Show Yourself Some Grace.

Listeners call in to tell us how their behavior has changed since social distancing began.

Heard on Debra Messing & Paul F Tompkins: Show Yourself Some Grace.

Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Actor and activist Debra Messing was already a recognizable performer by the time Will & Grace premiered. She starred as Stacey Colbert in the Fox comedy Ned & Stacey for two seasons and had the lead role in the short-lived ABC drama, Prey.