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Alan Cheuse reviews The Curse of the Appropriate Man by South African expatriate writer Lynn Freed. The book is a collection of short fiction, with mostly Jewish South African female characters.

A new detective film has taken Hong Kong by storm. Now Infernal Affairs, an interlocked story of police undercover work targeting gangs, is opening in the United States. NPR's Bob Mondello has a review.

We talk with an editor from Encarta Webster's Dictionary of the English Language about new words that are being added to the dictionary.

Maureen Corrigan looks at Hatchet Jobs, a collection of criticism by Dale Peck, book reviewer for The New Republic.

He's the founder of the Newport Folk Festival, the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival and the Newport Jazz Festival, which turns 50 this year. A new three-CD set, Happy Birthday Newport: 50 Swinging Years, celebrates the milestone. In the early 1950s, Wein founded the jazz clubs Storyville and Mahogany Hall in his hometown of Boston, where jazz giants Art Tatum, Sidney Bechet, Charlie Parker, Stan Getz and Miles Davis played. In 1954 he launched the Newport Jazz Festival, where he presented Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughn, Dave Brubeck and others. The other music greats he knew and worked with: Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk, Charles Mingus, Louis Armstrong. Last year, Wein published his autobiography, Myself Among Others: A Life In Music.

Trombone choirs have been a mainstay of American music for nearly 250 years. In recent times they've been popular with music majors in colleges. Reporter Jon Kalish looks at a brass collective that has been emanating from a Harlem church for the past 40 years.

The Stradivarius stolen from a cellist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic last month and later recovered is getting a makeover this summer. Each and every crack in the $3.5 million instrument is being repaired by a master craftsman, who says the owner won't notice the difference when the restoration is complete. Hear NPR's Renee Montagne.

Dangerfield made a comedic career out of his phrase "I don't get no respect." Now 82 years old, he has a new book, Rodney Dangerfield: It's Not Easy Bein' Me.

Meredith Ochs reviews the new album released by Memphis-based musician Scott Bomar. He jams with some of soul's legendary musicians, musicians well known for their work on the Stax/Volt record labels. The Bo-Keys CD is called The Royal Sessions.

NPR's Steve Inskeep reports that a National Hip-Hop Political Convention in New Jersey hopes to create a political platform for the hip-hop community and encourage people to vote.