Arts

There's a popular misconception that literary fiction is supposed to be staid, boring, realistic to a fault. Like all stereotypes, it's deeply unfair, but it endures, perhaps because readers keep having traumatic flashbacks to novels, like Sister Carrie, that they were forced to read in high school.

Violent video games have been a small part of the national conversation about gun violence in recent weeks. The big question: Does violence in games make people more violent in the real world?

The answer is unclear, but one thing is obvious: Violence sells games. The most popular video game franchise is Call of Duty, a war game where killing is the goal.

For some, Detroit may be a symbol of urban decay; but to Charlie LeDuff, it's home. LeDuff, a veteran print and TV journalist who spent 12 years at The New York Times, where he shared a Pulitzer Prize in 2001, returned home to the city after the birth of his daughter left him and his wife — also a Detroit native — wanting to be closer to family.

Valentine's Day is a great time for love and romance. But it can also bring up complicated questions about relationships. If you've been texting incessantly, when is the right time for an actual date? And is there such a thing as being too romantic? Host Michel Martin talks to etiquette experts about romance dilemmas.

The daily lowdown on books, publishing, and the occasional author behaving badly.

Fiction and nonfiction releases from Christine Sneed, Peter Carey, Nell Freudenberger and Tom Holland.

Copyright 2013 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

When the Oscars are handed out later this month, the ceremony will most likely be punctuated by music that has pretty much come to stand for movies and Movieland. Ironically, the composer grew up in Detroit, and the lyricist came from Savannah, Ga. — yet together they wrote the quintessential Tinseltown anthem.

"Hooray for Hollywood" was written for the Warner Brothers film Hollywood Hotel. It was a corny little "let's-go-to-Hollywood-and become-stars" movie from 1937, with some cute dialogue.

You have until 11:59 p.m. ET Sunday to send in your original short fiction. The challenge this round is to write a story in the form of a voice mail message. Submit your story here: https://npr3mf.submittable.com/submit

Ann Leary's latest book is The Good House.

I tend to read funny books when I'm happy and tragic books when I'm sad, but when I'm truly depressed, when I want to be fully immersed in the horrible splendor of the most desperate human suffering, I always return to Brian Moore's The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne.

On-air challenge: Every answer is a three-letter word that ends a familiar two-word phrase. You will be given the first word of the phrase. You provide the three-letter word that ends it. And the three letters in your answer will always be found, in some order, inside the first word. For example, given "Arctic," you would say "Air."

A reminder that our Three-Minute Fiction writing contest ends tomorrow night at 11:59PM EST. The challenge this time around, chosen by novelist and judge Mona Simpson, is to write a story in the form of a voicemail message.

This week, Wait Wait comes to you from the AT&T Performing Arts Center in the Dallas Arts District. Turns out, singer Erykah Badu was a student at the high school for the performing arts directly across the street. We're guessing she used to gaze across the street and say to herself: "Someday I'm going to be in a theater that's not yet built, performing on a public radio news quiz." And today, that dream comes true.

Over the years, I've come to the conclusion that what's generally referred to — often disdainfully — as "women's fiction" (not quite literature, not quite romance, definitely not Fifty Shades of Grey) is really a catch-all category into which almost any literary genre will fit.

Laurence Olivier, whose interpretations of Shakespeare's signature roles were often considered definitive, adapted several of those roles for film. He wrote and directed widely praised versions of Hamlet, Henry V and Richard III.

When Sampson Davis was in high school, he and two of his friends made a pact that they would someday become doctors. All three of them did. Along with those friends — and now fellow doctors — George Jenkins and Rameck Hunt, Davis co-authored a 2003 book called The Pact, about that promise and the way it shaped their lives.

In the early '80s, Italy's Taviani brothers, Paolo and Vittorio, made one of the true modern masterpieces, The Night of the Shooting Stars. Set in the last days of World War II, when Germans laid mines all over Tuscan villages and Fascists loyal to Mussolini killed their own countrymen, it was a very cruel film.

When it's early-mid February, the mind naturally turns to those fundamentals of the good life: love and football.

Transcript

OPHIRA EISENBERG, HOST:

Okay, let's bring on our next two contestants. Please welcome Hannah Van Winkle and Jason Shapiro.

(APPLAUSE)

EISENBERG: So happy to have you both, welcome.

HANNAH VAN WINKLE: Thank you.

JASON SHAPIRO: Thank you.

EISENBERG: Hannah, you are a television producer.

WINKLE: Indeed.

EISENBERG: Do you watch a lot of movies?

WINKLE: Yeah, a fair amount.

EISENBERG: What is one movie in your like top ten?

WINKLE: "Ghostbusters."

EISENBERG: "Ghostbusters," nice.