Weekly Roundup: Novelist Colum McCann, Comedic Cops, Cooking With Kids

Here’s our weekly compilation of arts coverage from all four of WBUR’s radio programs – Here & Now, Only A Game, On Point and Radio Boston.

Smith Westerns' New Album 'Soft Will'

NPR Music’s Stephen Thompson says the Chicago band's new album sounds like "weaponized agreeability" and certain songs "practically roll the car windows down for you."

Colum McCann On 'Transatlantic' And Healing After Newtown

Colum McCann’s latest novel spans more than 150 years, two continents and three turning points in history: the end of World War I, the dawn of the American Civil War and the waning days of the Irish Troubles.

‘Sparta’: A Marine’s Homecoming

In Roxana Robinson's new novel, a Marine returns from Iraq with no idea how to put the distant parts of his life together. It’s a terrifying return, one which many have made.

Tennis Great Jimmy Connors Tells His Side In ‘The Outsider’

Jimmy Connors, who's out with a new memoir, helped bring tennis from the rarefied air of the country club to the streets where he learned it.

Eugene Mirman Brings The Laughs Back Home

The comedian and Lexington-native is a self-made success. He's in town this weekend for a three-day comedy festival involving two local venues, 20 comedians and maybe even a baby goat.

Holocaust Documentary Tells Of ‘Two Who Dared’

The filmmaker's grandparents left their family in Massachusetts to go on to provide new identities for refugees, escort them across borders and organize a boat that brought refugee children to the United States.

‘The Heat’ Offers Twist On The Buddy Cop Genre

NPR's pop culture blogger Linda Holmes describes how Melissa McCarthy plays a Boston detective, the "doesn't-play-by-the-rules cop," while Sandra Bullock plays an FBI agent, the "straight-arrow cop."

ChopChop: How To Cook With Kids

The founder of the Watertown-based magazine "ChopChop" has been motivating kids and families to cook together since 2010. She shares her advice and some recipes.