A woman shows a Nativity scene displayed in a walnut in Luceram, France. In this southeastern village, handmade manger scenes of all types and sizes are displayed during the Christmas season.

As 2011 draws to a close, we take a look at the the year in pop music and the big changes in the industry, including new cloud services like Spotify. Jeffrey Brown talks with Los Angeles Times critic Randall Roberts.

A statue on top of the concert in Berlin's Gendarmenmarkt is seen through Christmas lights. Photo by Johannes Eisele/AFP/Getty Images.

On Wednesday's NewsHour, Mark Doty read his poem, "Messiah (Christmas Portions)." We'll post that poem here later this evening. He shared another of poems with us, below, called "A Display of Mackerel."…

What was 2011 like for fiction? And what was it like for books themselves? I recently talked with Washington Post book critic Ron Charles about the novels and authors who stood out from the others and about the business of…

Inmates at the Santa Monica Women's Prison stage a performance Tuesday in Lima, Peru. The inmates put on a Christmas show for the Peruvian first lady, Nadine Heredia.

A dancer from the Scottish Ballet sews on her pointe shoe straps before performing in a dress rehearsal "Sleeping Beauty" at the Theatre Royal in Glasgow.

P.F. Potvin is the author of "The Attention Lesson" (2006, No Tell Books). He serves on the staff of the online literary journal Drunken Boat. and has been a visiting writer at Emory University and the University of Michigan-Dearborn.