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McPartland and guest host Elvis Costello stroll down memory lane as she discusses her favorite moments from more than 700 episodes of Piano Jazz. Costello serenades McPartland with a moving version of "P.S. I Love You" and introduces a new song, "You Hung the Moon."

A new film explores the affair between Dickens and a young actress for whom he left his wife, but who for years never showed up in biographies of Dickens. It's the second film directed by Ralph Fiennes, who also plays Dickens.

Critics say former Defense Secretary Robert Gates' new book takes shots at President Obama and other members of his cabinet. The Washington Post's Greg Jaffe tells host Michel Martin more about the book and its fallout.

After devoting the past several years to theater acting, Cate Blanchett starred this past summer in Woody Allen's Blue Jasmine, for which she's been nominated for a Golden Globe. She spoke with NPR's Robert Siegel about the similarities between theater and film — and the need for lightness in even the darkest drama.

The composer and bandleader made his first recordings in the late 1940s. In the decades since, Heath has played with and written for everyone from Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie to Miles Davis and Milt Jackson.

E.L. Doctorow's new novel goes inside the brain of a neuroscientist trying to outrun his memories of disaster and the daughter he gave up. He tells NPR's Scott Simon that Andrew's Brain was inspired by his own memories, and by a recurring idea of a little girl hiding her colored-pencil drawings from adult eyes.

Every answer is a word that begins and ends with the letter A. You'll be given an anagram of the letters between the A's. For example, given "ern," the answer would be, "arena."

Braille Without Borders was the first school for the blind in Tibet, founded by a German woman who is blind herself, Sabriya Tenberken. On assignment profiling Tenberken, writer Rosemary Mahoney had to face her own fear of losing her sight and challenge long-standing misconceptions about blindness.

In this week's podcast, we hear a researcher's objections to hugging, comedian Paul F. Tompkins brings authors back from the dead, and Sharon Jones beats cancer and releases a long-awaited album.

Steve Inskeep continues his conversation with former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates about his new memoir, Duty. Gates discusses his personal relationship with the armed forces and the intense emotional toll of being secretary of defense at a time when the nation is conducting two wars.