In a fever dream of a retelling, America’s new reigning king of satire has turned a loved classic, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, upside down, placing Huck’s enslaved companion Jim at the center.
In an interview with NPR, Ford says it was only a couple of years ago that she felt ready to revisit how her life was upended by Brett Kavanaugh’s rise to a position on the U.S. Supreme Court.
When Shohini Ghose was studying physics as a kid, she heard certain names repeated over and over. “Einstein, Newton, Schrodinger … they’re all men.” Shohini wanted to change that — so she decided to write a book about some of the women scientists mis…
How did the soda giant from America come to be seen as “local” in Africa? And what has the impact been on the continent for worse and for better?
NPR’s Ayesha Rascoe talks with Sarah McCammon, NPR National Political Correspondent, about her religious upbringing and new book, “The Exvangelicals.”
The Chinese Nobel Prize-winning author Mo Yan is being sued for allegedly insulting national heroes. NPR’s Scott Simon speaks to Cornell Professor Jessica Chen Weiss about the case.
NPR’s Scott Simon talks with Charles Spencer, historian and Princess Diana’s brother, about his memoir, “A Very Private School.” It relates disturbing stories about his time in boarding school.
NPR’s Scott Simon asks “The English Patient” author Michael Ondaatje about his new collection of poems, “A Year of Last Things.”
Amazon is crowded with copycat books that appear to have been written by AI — and they’re attached to real authors who didn’t write them. (Story first aired on Morning Edition on March 13, 2023.)
The 2024 presidential election will be a rematch between former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden; and with that rematch comes political fanfare, some public apathy and déjà vu. To take a look at the public perception of this repeat race, …
Michael Cecchi-Azzolina has worked in several of New York City’s hottest restaurants, where he encountered celebrities, captains of finance and one bonafide mobster. Originally broadcast Dec. 6, 2022.
Author Susan Lieu transforms her acclaimed 2019 one-woman show — 140 LBS: How Beauty Killed My Mother — into a memoir of her family after the death of her mother due to botched plastic surgery.
Poets Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning’s “How do I love thee” courtship spurs Laura McNeal’s historical novel.
Prolific writer Percival Everett often skewers American social customs. His latest novel James is written from the point of view of the character Jim, from Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn.
Prolific writer Percival Everett often skewers different corners of American society. His latest novel James is written from the point of view of the character Jim, from Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn.
NPR’s Ari Shapiro talks with writer Daniel Lewis about his new book, Twelve Trees, which zeroes in on a different tree species in each chapter.
Overall, the number of individual titles challenged in both school and public libraries spiked by 65% — the highest level ever recorded by the ALA.
James Foley’s mother looks for the humanity in her son’s killer in the new book “American Mother” written by Colum McCann with Diane Foley.
Peter Pomerantsev co-founded a project recording Russian atrocities in Ukraine to combat Russian disinformation. His new book profiles a WWII propagandist who targeted the Nazi regime.
Gina Chung’s collection is a fantastic medley of short stories that dance between literary fiction, fable, Korean folklore, and science fiction — and one that’s full of emotional intelligence.
Ahead of the 50th anniversary of Stephen King’s first novel, Carrie, NPR wants to know about your favorite King book.
In the new book 2054, Admiral James Stavridis and Elliot Ackerman imagine how the singularity might threaten America and the world 30 years from now.
Adelle Waldman’s novel is a workplace ensemble set in a Costco-like store. But, because Help Wanted is a group portrait, it tends to visit, rather than settle in with, its working class characters.
Kate Manne tried to shrink her body for years before embracing her size as part of a “natural, normal human variation.” She says the fight against fat phobia must start in the doctor’s office.
Authors say that the proliferation of AI-generated books can lead customers into buying the wrong book on Amazon and that these books can harm authors’ sales numbers and reputations.
NPR’s Mary Louise Kelly speaks with CNN chief national security analyst Jim Sciutto about his new book The Return of Great Powers and how close we are to the precipice of a new global order.
U.S. politics isn’t working how it used to. The system seems brittle and unresponsive. Making a difference starts with understanding mistrust.
A literary journal called ponyXpress, featuring poetry and prose, is helping incarcerated writers in Oregon develop their talents.
When Dutt was a kid, her family pretended to be rich so no one would suspect their caste identity. In her memoir, she talks of her struggles — and her decision to publicly declare she is a Dalit.
The late author often wrote about the loneliness and isolation of the working class. His new short story collection puts a sharper focus on the politics of small town life.
In an excerpt from the Outside/In podcast, reporter Justine Paradis visits the dunes that inspired Frank Herbert’s book, Dune.
NPR’s Scott Simon speaks with sociologists Pamela Prickett and Stefan Timmermans about their book, “The Unclaimed,” about unclaimed bodies in Los Angeles and the stories behind them.
NPR’s Scott Simon talks with Rita Bullwinkel about her new novel, “Headshot.” It tells the past, present, and future of eight girls who compete in a boxing championship in Nevada.
Jennifer Croft’s novel, centered on a group of translators working on a book, is surprising at every turn, moving from profound observations about nature, art, and communication — to surreal events.
RuPaul announced this week that he’s sending a rainbow bus full of banned books from the West Coast to the South.
The Kentucky hometown of writer bell hooks now has a street named after her, just in time for Women’s History Month.
Jean Armour Polly was inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame in 2019 for evangelizing computers in public libraries, the precursor to the internet being offered as a core service in those spaces.
Writer, director and producer Ed Zwick has made dozens of films and TV shows. In Hits, Flops, and Other Illusions, he writes about studios, actors and the frustrations and joys of the business.
New collections The Gone Thing, Silver and Modern Poetry offer, if not a solution to trying times in America, then a kind of truth-telling companion, a mirror with a real person on both sides of it.
Captives on the ship Clotilda survived the middle passage and enslavement. After Emancipation, they carved out lives and towns in Alabama. But they struggled to escape poverty.
Renaissance women, long relegated to obscurity, are receiving their due as power brokers, artists, poets, patrons, and healers.
Until August is the last novel of the Nobel Prize-winning author, a work he asked his sons to destroy. But, nearly 10 years after his death, they have decided to publish his final novel.
Xochitl Gonzalez’s novel looking at relationship power dynamics is a thought-provoking and brilliantly entertaining triumph that surpasses the promise of her popular debut Olga Dies Dreaming.
Adelle Waldman’s novel “Help Wanted,” centered on workers in a big-box warehouse, is sociologically astute, deeply humane, and cleverly plotted.
Sloane Crosley’s memoir about a friend who died by suicide takes the form of a “traditional” elegy, but there’s nothing traditional about Crosley’s arresting observations on being engulfed by grief.
Rod Nordland was diagnosed with glioblastoma, the most lethal form of brain cancer, in 2019. He writes about facing mortality from war and cancer in his new memoir, Waiting for the Monsoon.
Black romance authors have been some of the leading advocates for change in the books industry. This Could Be Us, the latest by bestselling author Kennedy Ryan, hits shelves today.
The Emmy-winning host of RuPaul’s Drag Race describes himself as “an introvert masquerading as an extrovert.” He reflects on the first 40 years of his life in the memoir The House of Hidden Meanings.
Tricia Romano’s The Freaks Came Out To Write chronicles the passion and talent that made a great American newspaper — and the forces that killed it.
NPR’s Scott Detrow speaks with Charles Duhigg about his new book Supercommunicators.