A new film version of Azar Nafisi’s critically-praised, worldwide bestselling memoir, Reading Lolita in Tehran, is now in theatres.

The film shows a group of women meeting clandestinely in Nafisi’s home in the mid-1990s, to read forbidden books. They read classics of the West, like Madame Bovary, The Great Gatsby, Pride and Prejudice, and Lolita.

Education had become dangerous and even deadly during the Islamic Revolution, and reading forbidden books was Nafisi’s way to fight back.

The film, directed by Eran Riklis, begins with Nafisi as a university professor and ends with her exiled from her homeland. Nafisi told Scott Simon about the experience of seeing herself and her story depicted on the big screen, “I feel towards it the way I feel towards my children.”

The film is directed by Eran Riklis and won the the Audience Award and a special jury prize at the 2024 Rome Film Festival.

It stars Iranian actors Goldshifteh Farahani, Zar Amir Ebrahimi, and Mina Kavani. Like the author, some of the actors are exiled from Iran.

Actor Golshifteh Farahani stars as Azar Nafisi in Eran Riklis’ Reading Lolita in Tehran.

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“These girls were very different, one from the other,” Nafisi said of the students who studied with her in Tehran. Remembering them now, and seeing them depicted on the screen, Nafisi saw anew the power of great literature.

“Outside the classroom, they probably wouldn’t talk to one another. But in that class, they learned to communicate and to connect,” she said.

Through the stories in the books, Nafisi said each woman could find more and become more herself. “It reached a sort of magic,” she said.

The magic was brutally broken by a government that was desperate to quiet the voices of dissenters. Nafisi’s homeland changed quickly into a place she barely recognized

“This wasn’t my land,” she told Simon. “This was a country ruled by a regime that stoned people to death.”

When the religious hardliners in the government banned women from appearing in public without a headscarf, the film shows Nafisi, played by Goldshifteh Farahani, agonizing in front of a mirror with a black headscarf.

Wedding season is in full swing, bringing with it a familiar sense of dread for anyone who fears the dance floor.

But relief may finally be at hand with the help of a new app, Dance Guru, and a virtual reality (VR) headset.

The social dance instruction app transports users to a spacious, digital dance studio. Waiting inside is a computer-generated coach: a handsome, male avatar wearing a shirt open to his navel. He speaks with a slightly gravelly English accent.

“Watch me now,” he instructs at the start of a waltz lesson — which NPR tried out at the Augmented World Expo in Long Beach, Calif., an annual conference showcasing the latest developments in virtual and augmented reality.

The avatar then demonstrates a basic box step.

From there, the lesson becomes interactive. The coach tells the user to hold his hand while an electric pinging sound tracks the student’s foot placement.

“One, two, three, four, five, six,” the virtual teacher counts down.

When the user stumbles, he remains remarkably patient. “Do not worry, foundations take time. Let’s try that again. Work on grounding your steps more intentionally.”

Solving the beginner’s dilemma

Dance Guru creator David Huang said he came up with the idea for the app a couple of years ago out of frustration.

“I always wanted to learn to dance and I was always terrible at it,” Huang said. “And I always ended up stopping midway through the lessons.”

He soon realized that many beginners hit the exact same roadblocks.

“Private lessons are too expensive, and you feel like you’re always forgetting the dance steps,” Huang said. “You cannot find a partner to dance with. So I figured maybe I can create something like this.”

The Dance Guru platform currently offers tutorials in salsa, bachata, waltz, and cha-cha, in both lead and follow modes. To make the digital instruction feel authentic, Huang used motion-capture technology to record the movements of real-life dance teachers — with their permission.

Building on the legacy of online tutorials and video games

Dance Guru belongs to a small but growing wave of apps using VR to demystify social dance. At a nearby booth, conference attendee Victor Chen is testing out a competing app called Trip the Light. It currently offers salsa lessons, as well as freestyle options, where a user can dance with a partner without having to learn specific steps.

Trip the Light’s booth at the Augmented World Expo included posters of the app’s virtual instructors. Real-life performers, who gave Trip the Light permission to motion capture their movements, were used as a basis for these avatars.

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“A lot of times when you’re trying to learn a choreography, it’s watching a YouTube video and you have to pause it, rewind, and play it,” Chen said. “If you were to have a virtual avatar dancing in front of you and correcting for any parts that you missed, it might be a lot easier.”

For half a century, Deidre Hall has taken on every kind of disaster in the drama-packed town of Salem, Ill., as a star of “Days of Our Lives.”

There was the time — actually, it happened twice — when her character, Dr. Marlena Evans, was famously possessed by the devil and even levitated.

In Sunday Funday, L.A. people give us a play-by-play of their ideal Sunday around town. Find ideas and inspiration on where to go, what to eat and how to enjoy life on the weekends.

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Or the time a serial killer, who was actually Marlena under hypnosis, seemed to kill several beloved characters. The long-running show’s storylines have become legendary, and in March, while promoting “Hail Mary,” actor Ryan Gosling even gave Hall a shout-out, admitting he was a fan, praising the hard work of soap opera actors and calling her an “OG acting inspiration.”

But Hall’s real life in Santa Monica is much quieter than her character’s, and she likes it that way.

“When I bought my house in Santa Monica, I didn’t realize how great it would be to live near Montana Avenue,” says Hall, 78, about the popular shopping spot. Every day, she walks to the main street with her golden retriever, Riley, and enjoys Pilates, art and good food along the way. “The owners of the Farms Market even keep dog biscuits, so guess where the dog wants to go every time we walk — the Farms, of course,” she says, laughing.

When she isn’t filming the daily soap opera, which airs on Peacock, Hall enjoys raising monarch butterflies, exploring the shops and restaurants on Montana, and hosting movie nights at home with her two sons.

Here’s what a perfect day in L.A. looks like for her.

This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for length and clarity.

7 a.m.: Breakfast and dog walk

I usually kick off my day with a protein shake, feed our golden retriever and take her out for a walk. She’s a phenomenal girl. When we adopted her, her name was Riley, but I did think about naming her after Mrs. Hughes from “Downton Abbey.”

10 a.m.: Church and garden time

After I walk the dog and go to church, I like to spend some time in my yard. I’m not a natural gardener, but I really enjoy it. I started raising monarch butterflies because my identical twin sister, who played my twin on the show, planted a butterfly garden. Monarchs are amazing because they are transitional. Every year, they travel from Mexico to southern New England, but it’s getting harder for them. Their numbers have dropped by about 80%. To help, I plant milkweed, which is what they need to survive. I buy my milkweed from the Staghorn Garden on Wilshire Boulevard in Santa Monica. Julie, who owns the nursery, is delightful and has a wide variety of milkweed. The monarchs always seem to find my garden. Julie was raising some caterpillars too, and she cared a lot about them. We talked about how important it is to help the butterflies. That’s why I do this. Sometimes I get milkweed with eggs already on it, and Julie knows her butterflies are going to a good home.

1 p.m.: Walk to Montana Avenue for some lunch

I live near Montana and love taking long walks, going to Pilates and trying out the great restaurants nearby, like R+D Kitchen and La La Land. I’m a big fan of the waffles at the Courtyard Kitchen. Just a few days ago, I had a chicken salad on raisin bread with an Arnold Palmer, and it was delicious. It is right on Montana and has a nice outdoor seating area. It’s one of my favorite spots. La La Land always has a long line in the morning, which is perfect if you want coffee. They serve coffee, doughnuts, croissants and avocado toast. There’s plenty of outdoor seating, and you can even bring your dog.

2 p.m.: Peek inside a clock shop

There’s a small clock shop on Montana Avenue that’s closed on Sundays, but if you walk by, you’ll see all kinds of clocks — standing, table and wall clocks. The owner is great at fixing them. Once, I bought a wall clock from MacKenzie-Childs, but it didn’t work. And I was really upset because it matched everything else on my countertop. I brought it to the owner and said, “I love this, but I can’t make it work.” He fixed it right away. His name is John, but I call him Geppetto. And we all know why. He really does have a magic touch.

2:30 p.m.: Visit a neighborhood art gallery

Ten Women Gallery is run by 10 artists, all of whom show their work there. I was drawn to some watercolors there, bought a few cards and spoke with one of the artists. She told me, “You seem to love watercolors,” and mentioned that the artist who painted them, Pamela Harnois, lives in Los Angeles and teaches nearby. I got Pamela’s name and found out she taught at the Brentwood Art School. I was so inspired by her gift that I started taking private lessons with her on Saturdays. That gallery is where I discovered my love for watercolor painting.

3 p.m.: Grab some ice cream at Rori’s

The other day, my longtime girlfriend wanted to get ice cream and told me, “We are walking to Rori’s Artisanal Creamery.” It’s a small shop on Montana near Lincoln. They make everything themselves, using local ingredients from grass-fed cows with no added hormones. The place is family-owned and probably has the healthiest ice cream you’ll find. They switch up their flavors often, but my favorite is the salted caramel.

6 p.m.: Family dinner and movie night at home

R+D Kitchen is always packed, so my sons, who are 31 and 33, do the cooking. They come over, and together we make salads and cook dinner. There’s a neighborhood grocery store called the Farms, off Montana, a small family-run place that has everything we need. Everyone knows each other there, and people bring their dogs. We try to have movie night every Sunday. Sometimes the day changes, but we always make sure to have one night a week where we cook a meal and sit down as a family. Keeping that tradition has become really important to us. My sons are great cooks, which is funny because they definitely didn’t get that from me. [Laughs]

9 p.m.: Take Riley for one last walk and visit neighbors

After dinner, I take my dog for a walk. It’s a great way to meet neighbors. We always go around the same block. We’ve met so many people, and since she’s a golden retriever, she loves meeting everyone.

10 p.m.: News, knitting and bedtime

I am a news junkie, so I usually watch whatever is on the news before I go to bed. I have a long-standing passion for knitting. Lately, though, the news would make me drop a stitch.