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Beck is something of a musical chameleon — he's been called a cracked folkie, a hip-hop joker, a sonic innovator, even a pop star. His latest CD finds him in all these guises, and more. Full of narcotic funk and psychedelic rock, it may well be a classic.

Hazmat Modine is a New York band fronted by two harmonica players. Their repertoire starts with blues and branches into various genres of Americana, but always with a difference: tuba bass lines, lacings of Eastern European hammer dulcimer, or Tuvan throat singing. The group's debut CD is Bahamut — reviewer Banning Eyre says its charm lies in how it lends an air of mystery and other-worldliness to familiar sounds.

Lil Nas X, who publicly came out in 2019, says his sexuality was a reason for his lack of BET Awards nominations this year.

Ukraine's National Opera was built to celebrate Russian opera at the height of the imperial era. Performances were suspended after the war began but have recently re-started.

Saxophonist Ornette Coleman burst on the jazz scene in the 1950s with a new kind of music called "free jazz," which he called "harmodolics." He and his band broke away from traditional melodic conventions, creating controversy and revolutionizing the jazz art form. This album catches him and his group at its peak.

As winter nears, we look for ways to be warm and comfortable. One of the best ways to do that, says food writer Nigella Lawson, is to indulge in rich, tasty foods that some might call guilty pleasures. For instance: Why not make French toast that tastes like a doughnut?

In the early 1960s, writer Norton Juster and illustrator Jules Feiffer created The Phantom Tollbooth, which quickly became a kid-lit classic. Now, 50 years later, the two have finally collaborated once more — this time, on a picture book called The Odious Ogre. They speak to NPR's Liane Hansen about their partnership and their new project.

Music infuses veteran novelist Kazuo Ishiguro's first collection of short stories and award-winning author Connie Willis views London's Blitz during WWII from the distant future while Alain de Botton watches the world pass by at Heathrow Airport — and more.

Whimsical and richly illustrated, Maira Kalman's graphic diary is an optimistic yearlong exploration of American history and government. And the Pursuit of Happiness is an unorthodox tribute to the United States — from musings on the Department of Homeland Security to Ruth Bader Ginsburg to Ben Franklin.

English rose from humble beginnings to become a language that's spoken by people from every corner of the Earth. In Globish, Robert McCrum tells the story of how a mongrel language slowly took the world by storm.