Coming up Wednesday May 6th - Ruth Franklin shares details about her new book, The Many Lives of Anne Frank

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A revealing biography of Anne Frank, exploring both her life
and the impact of her extraordinary diary.

Finalist, 2025 Los Angeles Times Book Prizes

“With sensitivity and assiduous research, [Franklin] constructs a vivid cultural history that advocates for a reevaluation of Frank.”―New Yorker, “Best Books of the Year”

“Trenchant. . . . An essential look at the diarist’s legacy.”―Publishers Weekly

In this innovative biography, Ruth Franklin explores the transformation of Anne Frank (1929–1945) from ordinary teenager to icon, shedding new light on the young woman whose diary of her years in hiding, now translated into more than seventy languages, is the most widely read work of literature to arise from the Holocaust.

Comprehensively researched but experimental in spirit, this book chronicles and interprets Anne’s life as a Jew in Amsterdam during World War II while also telling the story of the diary―its multiple drafts, its discovery, its reception, and its message for today’s world. Writing alongside Anne rather than over her, Franklin explores the day-to-day perils of the Holocaust in the Netherlands as well as Anne’s ultimate fate, restoring her humanity and agency in all their messiness, heroism, and complexity.

With antisemitism once again in the news, The Many Lives of Anne Frank takes a fresh and timely look at the debates around Anne’s life and work, including the controversial adaptations of the diary, Anne’s evolution as a fictional character, and the ways her story and image have been politically exploited. Franklin reveals how Anne has been understood and misunderstood, both as a person and as an idea, and opens up new avenues for interpreting her life and writing in today’s hyperpolarized world.

Joining Janeane on Wednesday May 6th - Danielle Crittenden talks about her forthcoming book, Dispatches from Grief: A Mother's Journey Through the Unthinkable

“A little masterpiece.”

—Tina Brown

DISPATCHES FROM GRIEF

A MOTHER’S JOURNEY THROUGH THE UNTHINKABLE

By Danielle Crittenden

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Crittenden’s words ring with truth, love, clarity, and courage.

—Andrew Solomon, National Book Award–winning author of Far from the Tree and The Noonday Demon


With grace and clarity, Danielle Crittenden explains how it is possible to go on living in an altered world…Readers will find consolation, hope, and insight, as well as sadness and sorrow.

—Anne Applebaum, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Gulag, Twilight of Democracy, and Autocracy, Inc.


A profound and powerful look into the human condition.

—David Brooks, New York Times columnist and bestselling author of The Second Mountain



A moving and intimate expression of pain—Kirkus

See accompanying companion piece in The Atlantic: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/05/david-frum-miranda-daughter-grief/677815/

Written with the narrative power that has made Danielle Crittenden one of our most incisive observers of family and culture, Dispatches from Grief: A Mother’s Journey Through the Unthinkable (May 4, 2026, Infinite Books) stands as both a singular portrait of loss and a universal exploration of love’s aftermath. It will speak to anyone who has loved deeply, lost profoundly, and wondered how to continue when continuation seems impossible.

On a February morning, Danielle Crittenden’s world cleaved in two: the life before her daughter Miranda was found dead in her Brooklyn apartment, and the life after. In this luminous memoir, Dispatches from Grief, Crittenden maps the territory of profound loss with the clarity of a foreign correspondent filing reports from a country no parent ever wishes to visit.

With unflinching honesty and unexpected grace, she chronicles not just the shattering impact of a child's death, but the strange afterlife of grief itself—the way it infiltrates grocery stores and social media, transforms old friendships and forges new ones, and ultimately reshapes the mourner as fundamentally as it has reshaped the world.

Here is grief in all its terrible specificity: the police call that changes everything, the surreal task of choosing a burial dress, the well-meaning friends who offer advice about “stages” that don't exist. But here too is love in its most distilled form—a mother’s meditation on a daughter who commanded dinner tables at twelve, who once interviewed Dick Cheney with a child’s notebook, who transformed from a precocious girl into a sparkling young woman living her dreams in New York.

Crittenden brings a journalist’s eye to the landscape of loss, coining the perfect term for those who try to explain grief to the grieving (“griefsplaining”), finding dark comedy in a hotel clerk's relentless cheerfulness, and discovering that C.S. Lewis told more truth about mourning in seventy-three pages than a library of self-help books. She writes of joining what she calls “the alternative universe”—parents who have lost children—and of the terrible wisdom its members share.

For those walking through their own valleys of grief, this book offers not false comfort but true companionship. For those who love someone who is grieving, it provides a window into a world that can only be understood from within. And for all readers, it serves as a reminder that our time with those we love is both more precious and more precarious than we dare imagine.




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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Danielle Crittenden is a journalist, author, and former host of the podcast The Femsplainers, known for her incisive and original commentary on women, family, and modern life. In addition to writing a popular monthly newsletter on Substack, her work has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, and more. She is the author of four previous books, including What Our Mothers Didn’t Tell Us: Why Happiness Eludes the Modern Woman, praised by Vanity Fair as the work of “one of the most important new thinkers about women and family.” Born in Toronto, she now lives in Washington, D.C. and Wellington, Ontario with her husband, journalist David Frum.

Duran Duran at BeachLife Festival: Legacy, Live Music, and Why Their Sound Still Hits Today

DURAN DURAN RELEASE NEW SINGLE

‘FREE TO LOVE’ FT. NILE RODGERS

TO PERFORM SINGLE ON JIMMY KIMMEL LIVE! WEDNESDAY, APRIL 29

NORTH AMERICAN WEST COAST RUN STARTS MAY 1

LISTEN | WATCH
‘FREE TO LOVE’ FT. NILE RODGERS

NORTH AMERICAN TOUR DATES
05/01 - BeachLife Festival – Redondo Beach, CA
05/02 - Fontainebleau, Las Vegas, NV
05/06 - Fontainebleau, Las Vegas, NV
05/08 - Fontainebleau, Las Vegas, NV
05/09 - Fontainebleau, Las Vegas, NV


BeachLife Festival in Redondo on Friday features DURAN DURAN’s headlining set on Friday night. The global music icons will have an extraordinary set of hits and just debuted their absolutely electrifying new single “FREE TO LOVE” Ft. Nile Rodgers. Watch the Top of the Pops-inspired music video HERE and check out their live performance on Jimmy Kimmel Live! last night HERE.


An uplifting, high-energy track built around a euphoric groove, ‘Free To Love’ features and was co-written by the legendary Nile Rodgers. The new single delivers an explosive strain of cyber-funk-fun, immediate and built for the dancefloor, while carrying a message of positivity, openness and love in the face of a very divided world. Listen to it HERE.

Global music icons Duran Duran today unveil their first new music of 2026 with ‘Free To Love,’ the brand new single featuring longtime collaborator Nile Rodgers. The song, which is accompanied by a Jonas Åkerlund-directed music video starring British broadcaster and personality Clara Amfo – made in association with Italian luxury perfumer Xerjoff - comes just days before they embark on a run of west coast headline dates and a late-night performance on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, before returning to Europe and the UK, where they will headline London’s BST Hyde Park for the second time, on July 5th.

An uplifting, high-energy track built around a euphoric groove, ‘Free To Love’ features and was co-written by the legendary Nile Rodgers. The new single delivers an explosive strain of cyber-funk - fun, immediate and built for the dancefloor, while carrying a message of positivity, openness and love in the face of a very divided world.


Introducing ‘Free To Love’, Simon Le Bon said:
"Free To Love is disco for the 2020's. It's up-beat & up-tempo; it's about freedom; it's about loving the modern world instead of hating it, and that is something we need right now. Be free! Be free to love!”



Nick Rhodes added:
"Every time we plug in and play with Nile, the electricity he generates could light up a whole city. We share a common belief that music is a force for good and something that brings positive energy into the world. 'Free to Love' is our call to all the people out there who want peace, hope and understanding to prevail. An anthem for freedom, which is the most valuable currency we have, and something that should be truly and freely available for everyone, everywhere. 'Free to Love' has a simple message, there is nothing more important than freedom and love. We certainly need a lot more of both in the world right now.”



‘Free to Love’ is the latest in a long line of Duran Duran x Nile Rodgers collaborations that first began with a remix of the iconic #1 smash single, ‘The Reflex’ more than four decades ago.



Speaking about their latest work, Nile Rodgers said:
“True love is free and unconditional. My love for Duran Duran, and what our music together has always been about, is the love we share for our song's deepest meanings. Whatever chaos is going on outside, inside the studio we're free to love our peace.”



The high energy music video for ‘Free To Love’ is directed by the legendary Jonas Åkerlund ((Madonna, Beyoncé, Metallica, Lady Gaga), with fashion direction and costume design by Bea Åkerlund, and stars Clara Amfo introducing Duran Duran and Nile Rodgers before a spectacular retro music show-style performance.



Speaking about the creation of the new music video, Jonas Åkerlund said:
"Working with Duran Duran again, it’s clear the instinct is still there: they don’t just make music — they build a visual world around it. Always bold, always pushing for more, and with Nile Rodgers involved, that creative energy just gets even better.”


The video is made in association with Italian luxury perfumer Xerjoff, whose NeoRio fragrance (which was co-created by the band) provides both the inspiration and visual language for the film. The clip is a natural next chapter in a creative partnership that has been quietly building for the past year. It began on the set of the band’s 'Black Moonlight' music video, the song that shares its name with the first of their two Xerjoff scents, and has since grown into a genuine friendship and creative dialogue that has surpassed anything anyone could have imagined. Where 'Black Moonlight' found its companion in the nocturnal mystery of that first fragrance, 'Free To Love' speaks directly to the spirit of NeoRio — luminous, euphoric and built for exactly this kind of energy, its four vividly coloured bottles a visual blueprint for the warmth and technicolour atmosphere Åkerlund brings to life on screen.

Sergio Momo, Founder of Xerjoff, said: "What began on the set of the ‘Black Moonlight’ music video has grown into one of the most creatively fulfilling journeys of my career. Duran Duran approach music in the same way we approach perfume: with a desire to transport people into entirely different worlds. Seeing NeoRio come to life in 'Free To Love' feels like the perfect next step, and exactly what this collaboration has always been about."

Duran Duran are one of the most successful and influential bands in pop history. With well over 100 million records sold worldwide, the Birmingham-formed group has soundtracked generations with a peerless arsenal of hits including "Rio", "Hungry Like the Wolf", "Girls on Film", and "Ordinary World". Long time band mates Simon Le Bon, Nick Rhodes, John Taylor and Roger Taylor are known for their electrifying live performances and pioneering synth-pop sound. The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductees continue to prove why they are enduring music royalty with sold-out tours and critically acclaimed releases, including their sixteenth studio album, 2023’s Halloween themed Danse Macabre, which became their 10th UK Top 5 album.

Live, the band remain unstoppable, selling out arenas across the UK and North America during their Future Past Tour, before embarking on a prestigious multi-night Las Vegas residency at the Fontainebleau, preceded by a headline slot at California’s Beachlife Festival, and followed by a month-long run through Europe that includes their second performance at London’s BST in Hyde Park.



[PHOTO CREDIT: STEPHANIE PISTEL



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ABOUT DURAN DURAN:
Duran Duran are one of the most successful and influential bands in pop history. With well over 100 million records sold worldwide, the Birmingham-formed group has soundtracked generations with a peerless arsenal of hits including "Rio", "Hungry Like the Wolf", "Girls on Film", and "Ordinary World”. Long time band mates Simon Le Bon, Nick Rhodes, John Taylor and Roger Taylor are known for their electrifying live performances and pioneering synth-pop sound. The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductees continue to prove why they are enduring music royalty with sold-out tours and critically acclaimed releases, including their sixteenth studio album, 2023’s Halloween themed Danse Macabre, which became their 10th UK Top 5 album.