Arts & Culture

These books confront readers with the recent past and distant future, bring them to southeastern Africa and an alternative Japan, and bedeck their pages with subversive cartoons and lush landscapes.

NPR's Leila Fadel visits Pooja Bavishi, the author of Malai, a South Asian-inspired frozen desserts cookbook, at her D.C. shop where they sample ice cream and make their own treat.

Orson Welles' acclaimed drama follows two generations in a well-to-do Indianapolis family. Isabel Amberson receives a proposal from dashing Eugene (Joseph Cotten), but opts instead to marry boring Wilbur. Time passes, and Wilbur and Isabel's only son, George (Tim Holt), is loathed as a controlling figure in the town. When Wilbur dies, Eugene again proposes to Isabel, but George threatens the union. As George in turn courts the woman he wants to marry, a string of tragedies befalls the family.