FRESH AIR
After 44 years as a newspaperman, former Washington Post executive editor Leonard Downie Jr. is making his debut as a fiction writer. His new novel, The Rules of The Game, features an investigative reporter on the beat of a hotly contested presidential election. Downie joined the Post as an summer intern in 1964, and retired in Sept. 2008 after serving 17 years as the paper’s executive editor. In his last year as editor, the paper won six Pulitzer Prizes for work done in 2007 — the most it had ever earned in one year. ALSO, John Yemma, the editor of The Christian Science Monitor, discusses the paper’s new publication model: The Monitor is moving the daily operation to the Web and converting its print paper to a weekly. Yemma joined the Monitor in June 2008 after more than 20 years at the The Boston Globe.
ALL SONGS CONSIDERED: The songs of singer-guitarist M. Ward seem to drift in on the crackling radio waves of a distant time. Warm and intimate, his largely acoustic and usually spare arrangements are a tribute to what Ward sees as the greatest era for American music: the 1950s and early ’60s, when singers like Buddy Holly and Roy Orbison infused country-rooted pop with honesty and romance. Ward’s latest album, Hold Time, continues this tradition, with a gorgeously produced mix of finger-picked guitars, upright bass and shuffling rhythms, all tied together by his achy voice. Hold Time won’t be released until Feb. 17, but listeners can hear the entire album here on NPR Music as an exclusive preview, beginning at 11:59 p.m. ET Monday, Jan. 12.
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