When Joshua Bell was 21, he recorded an iconic piece of chamber music for piano and violin — the Sonata in A major by Cesar Franck. Today, Bell is 44 and he's recorded it again. It's on his new album, French Impressions, with pianist Jeremy Denk.
All Things Considered host Robert Siegel invited Bell to listen to his old recording for a little session of compare-and-contrast.
"Do you hear the same violinist?" Siegel asks, after playing for Bell the opening bars of his 1989 recording.
At first glance, the Corner Perk Cafe in Bluffton, South Carolina seems like a regular neighborhood cafe, but in 2010, a customer's spontaneous act set it apart.
Thirty-year-old Josh Cooke, the owner of the Corner Perk describes when a woman came in one day and left a large bill.
Alan Bennett, author of The History Boys and The Madness of King George, among countless other books, plays and memoirs, is a grand old man of British letters.
"I'm getting on now, and I'm thought of in England as being rather cozy and genteel — certainly in the stories that I write," he tells weekends on All Things Considered host Guy Raz.
So Bennett decided to give his readers a little rattle with a new book of two short stories called Smut.
