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From Stagecoach to The Graduate, movies have helped to shape our world. Nick Clooney, former host of cable's American Movie Classics, joins NPR's Bob Edwards to talk about his new book, The Movies That Changed Us: Reflections on the Screen. NPR Online has the list of the 20 movies featured in Clooney's book.

Playwright Tom Stoppard has a new work on stage in London. The author of Rosencrantz and Guildensten are Dead and many others, turns out a nine-hour dramatic trilogy about the Russian intelligentsia. It's called The Coast of Utopia. Fred Mogul of member station WNYC reports.

What do conductor Leopold Stokowski, T.S. Eliot and Grandmaster Flash have in common? They've all won spots on the National Recording Registry, an archive that seeks to preserve the sounds of American culture. NPR's Elizabeth Blair reports on the first 50 recordings to be included in the list. Listen to samples of some of the recordings to be preserved.

William Russo, who composed and arranged music for Stan Kenton, also wrote works performed by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the New York Philharmonic. He died recently at 74. Tony Sarabia of Chicago Public Radio offers an appreciation.

Edouard Vuillard was not as widely known as the Impressionist masters, but he created more than 3,000 paintings between the late 1800s and his death a half-century later. NPR's Susan Stamberg tours the most comprehensive exhibition of the French artist's works, premiering at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.

Film director George Roy Hill dies of complications from Parkinson's disease. Hill, who was 81, is best-remembered for two films in particular: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Sting. NPR's Neda Ulaby offers an appreciation.

Author Richard Conniff has written about the natural world for National Geographic and Smithsonian magazines.

In Anouar Brahem's native Tunisia, the oud is known today mainly in the context of loud and large ensembles that leave it all but buried in a dervish of sound. But Brahem highlights the stringed instrument in a delicate, often introspective context. On his new CD Le pas du chat noir, the oud is part of an unlikely trio including piano and accordion. He talks with NPR's Liane Hansen.

Actress and singer Nell Carter, the star of the 1980s TV sitcom Gimme A Break and of the Broadway smash Ain't Misbehavin', dies of complications from diabetes. She was 54. NPR's Bob Mondello has an appreciation.

Pianist and singer Vienna Teng recorded most of her debut full-length CD, Waking Hour, while studying computer science at Stanford University. After graduating in 2000, Teng took a job as a computer engineer, but quit this past spring to perform her music around the country. NPR's Liane Hansen talks with Teng about her music.