Han Solo is dead. Luke Skywalker is back, but changed. And Leia Organa's story will soon be coming to an end. The Star Wars that inspired four decades of passionate fandom appears to be slowly...

"Wayne and Ford: The Films, the Friendship, and the Forging of an American Hero" (Nan A. Talese/Doubleday), by Nancy Schoenberger American movies feature a handful of great actor-director...

A newly discovered Raymond Chandler story has everything from an indictment of the medical industry to some mysterious scribble. "It's All Right: He Only Died," the title suggesting a macabre Bob...

Firefighters must be our last real superheroes. They run toward stuff that's on fire, for heaven's sake. There are the few public servants — not cops, politicians or doctors — as beloved...

"The Vanishing Season" (Minotaur), by Joanna Schaffhausen Ellery Hathaway, junior officer on the police force in sleepy Woodbury, Massachusetts, will do almost anything to convince her boss that...

U2, "Songs of Experience" (Interscope Records) Like its 2014 predecessor, U2's "Songs of Experience" is the product of a difficult and drawn-out recording process. Much more so than "Songs...

There are basically two kinds of Tom Cruise performances, and both can look pretty similar on the surface. Each likes sunglasses, going fast and smiling big. He never exactly loosens up or slows...

The composer behind such iconic stage stories as "The Phantom of the Opera," ''Evita" and "Cats" is ready to tell his own. Andrew Lloyd Webber plans to release his autobiography "Unmasked" on...

"Bobby Kennedy: a Raging Spirit" (Simon & Schuster), by Chris Matthews How many books about the Kennedys are enough books about the Kennedys? If public response is any indication, we have yet...

Joe Henry, "Thrum" (earMUSIC) These songs don't wish to be labeled. They're not pop, even though the singer is Madonna's brother-in-law. You won't hum to "Thrum." They're not country, Joe...