Pop Culture Happy Hour

Last month at an Advertising Week event in New York, Linda Holmes had the chance to sit down with a legend of public radio and of good conversation. Terry Gross has hosted Fresh Air since 1975. She still brings listeners daily conversations about news and books, film and science. Today, we're sharing an edited version of that conversation.

Ryan Murphy and his collaborators are responsible for everything from Glee to American Horror Story. And now, they've made their first project for Netflix. It follows Payton Hobart, a high school student determined to be president of the student body, and one day the United States. Murphy has gathered another of his impressive casts: Ben Platt, Gwyneth Paltrow, Bob Balaban, Bette Midler, and of course Jessica Lange.

Summer is turning to fall where we are, and that means it's time for a couch, a blanket, and a book. Fiction and nonfiction, essays and memoirs, we've got some ideas for things you can read this fall. And we're bringing in a couple of our favorite book lovers to help us out.

In the new Todd Phillips film Joker , Joaquin Phoenix plays Arthur Fleck, an aspiring comic. Neglected by the world and beaten down everywhere he turns, Fleck does what any discouraged clown would do: he becomes a menace.

The Netflix series Unbelievable brings together a group of actresses including Kaitlyn Dever, Toni Collette, Merritt Wever, Dale Dickey and Danielle MacDonald. It's based on a true story about a young woman named Marie who was sexually assaulted and pressured by the police into recanting her story. Based on reporting from ProPublica and the Marshall Project, the series follows Marie, but also the two detectives who, much later, gave her case a chance to be solved.