All Things Considered

Envoys from dozens of countries and international organizations meet in Bonn, Germany, hoping to chart a path to peace for Afghanistan. But the conference has been marred by the absence of Pakistan, furious over NATO airstrikes that left two dozen of its soldiers dead last week.

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LYNN NEARY, HOST:

It's ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Lynn Neary.

ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

And I'm Robert Siegel.

Little good can be said of war, but that it has provided fertile ground for some of the world's great novelists. The latest example is Andrew Krivak's first book, "The Sojourn." It's set during World War I.

Alan Cheuse has our review.

As a boy in a tiny village in Mexico, I loved climbing up to the roof of my family's small home so I could study the stars and dream of becoming an astronaut. Then I discovered Kaliman, a comic-book hero who could unravel any mystery with his powers of telepathy, philosophy and scientific ability. He was fond of saying, "He who masters the mind, masters everything."

Military benefits for retirees cost the Pentagon more than $50 billion each year. Few in Washington are publicly in favor of cutting those entitlements, even though former Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the cost was "eating the Defense Department alive." One former Navy commander, Bryan McGrath, tells weekends on All Things Considered guest host Rachel Martin he'd be willing to pay more for his benefits.

At 32, neo-soul singer and multi-instrumentalist Mayer Hawthorne isn't quite old enough to remember the classic days of Motown, but the Michigan native says he did absorb some of the music's aesthetic growing up, thanks to his father.

Pauline Kael, long-time New Yorker film critic, was famous for her scathing, but honest movie reviews. She took digs at many popular films like The Sound of Music and Star Wars with no inhibitions. Yet her enthusiasm for films like Bonnie and Clyde gave some movies a new lease on life.

Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud are known as the fathers of psychoanalysis, but they focused on different things. Freud on the sexual underpinnings of — well, almost everything — and Jung for his mystical bent and dream theories.

For years, the two were close friends and collaborators but they had a falling out that ultimately ended their relationship. And turns out, there was a woman involved. Her name was Sabina Spielren.

The stories of all three are woven together in a new film called <em>A Dangerous Method.</em>

Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're out to get you.

That could be the motto this week for abortion rights groups that immediately sprang into battle mode when it was discovered that Siri, Apple's new artificially intelligent personal assistant, wasn't so, well, intelligent when it came to abortion.

It turns out, however, that it was all much ado about not so much.

When it was discovered earlier this week that Apple's new iPhone assistant Siri had trouble telling people where to get an abortion, abortion rights groups immediately cried foul. It turns out the problem is not a conspiracy but a software glitch.

Seventeen years ago, Mary J. Blige shook up the world of R&B when she released the record My Life. It ushered in a new sound: soul music over hip-hop beats. Instantly, Blige became known as the queen of hip-hop soul.

My Life was about pain — about Blige's rough childhood, abusive relationship and battles with addiction and depression. Seventeen years on, she's revisited that album. Her new record is called My Life II ... The Journey Continues. She says it's about strength.