Malcolm Jones

Nashville rejected him as a singer, but he turned out to be one of the best songwriters in history. This is how Willie Nelson—poet, author, activist, cowboy, outlaw, outcast, misfit, and everyman—became the enduring face of American music.

His new post-9/11 novel is messy, funny, sad, and consoling all at once.

The musician’s most recent bootleg installment, 'Another Self Portrait,’ brings Bob the man—and his much derided album—into focus.

An iPad app lets you interact, literally, with Josef Albers’s theories of color.

Is winter weather keeping you inside? From the Pacific Islands to the American West, these books will take your far, far away.

A second life for cemeteries.

David Byrne has been performing all his life, so why not write about it? He talks to Malcolm Jones about 'How Music Works.'

Students tap dance and tout idealism in ‘Damsels in Distress.’

From the real Putin to a hedge-fund thriller, forthcoming books not to miss.

The composer talks about musical theater, the expectations of audiences, and putting it all together in songwriting.

Nazis. Wonder drugs. Uzi-toting mothers. Here’s what to pick up this season.

Cary Grant’s daughter has a new memoir that reveals him to be a doting mensch at home.

Cartoonist Ben Katchor returns with a new opus.

The last time the United States observed a major anniversary of the Civil War, the centennial celebration in 1961–65, things quickly fell apart. When the Civil War Centennial Commission held a national convention in Charleston, S.C., where the war began with the firing on Fort Sumter in April 1861, it denied a black delegate admission to the convention’s segregated hotel.

After 75 years, a poignant moment for film enthusiasts has come. But it’s duffers like me who did it in in the first place.

When Charles Portis published 'True Grit' in 1968, the novel became a critically praised bestseller. Then a year later the movie, starring John Wayne, came out, and after that no one even remembered there was a book.

Laura Hillenbrand stumbled upon Olympic runner Louis Zamperini in the course of researching "Seabiscuit," her debut book about the celebrated racehorse. “Louie and Seabiscuit were famous runners at the same time in the ’30s,” she says. “They were both at their peak and both in California.”

Hollywood mythologized him as "Lawrence of Arabia," but the real T. E. Lawrence was bigger than that. In fact, he may have been the original worldwide media celebrity.

In the 1960s, a loose confederation of young artists, poets, and musicians gave their native Brazil’s culture a near total overhaul. The movement was called Tropicalia.