Terry Gross

The movie Beginners stars Ewan McGregor as a young man who learns that his 75-year-old father, played by Christopher Plummer, is gay. The movie is based on filmmaker Mike Mills' own life. Mill explains what happened when his own dad came out.

Rolling Stone political correspondent Tim Dickinson says the tax policies pursued by the Republican Party have benefited the top 1 percent of income earners. "The people at the very top of the income [bracket] are taking off like a rocket," he says.

Astrophysicist Saul Perlmutter is part of the team that was awarded the 2011 Nobel Prize in physics for the discovery that the expansion of the universe is not slowing down but is accelerating. The results of that research suggest the universe is filled with dark energy.

More soldiers are returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with wounds that would have been fatal a decade ago. The injuries have led to advances in combat medicine but have challenged the health care systems meant to help veterans back home. War reported David Wood talks with Fresh Air about the hurdles facing these troops and their families.

The Air Force's Bay State Winds Clarinet Quartet joins Terry Gross for a discussion of military ensembles. The group also performs several songs in tribute to the men and women who've served in the armed forces.

Joe Henry has produced albums by Solomon Burke, Allan Toussaint, Hugh Laurie and others. The versatile singer, songwriter and producer has just released Reverie, his 12th album. It features acoustic performances from a three-day jam session in his basement.

The actress stars in Lars von Trier's new psychological drama Melancholia, about depression and the end of the world. She talks about making the film and about working with Von Trier, whose controversial remarks about Hitler got him kicked out of this year's Cannes Film Festival.

Historian Jill Lepore writes about the early history of the birth control and abortion movements in this week's New Yorker. "I think it's easy to lose perspective [that] actually the arguments made by one side or another have switched sides over time more than once," she says.

The Vanity Fair critic was an aspiring writer when he arrived in a turbulen Manhattan in 1972. In his memoir, Lucking Out, he writes about the crime and culture (and pornography) he discovered there.

How do skyscrapers withstand 100-mph winds? How does air circulate inside tall buildings? And what happens when you flush a toilet on the 100th floor? Those questions and more are answered by Kate Ascher in her new book exploring the inner workings of skyscrapers.