NPR's Steve Inskeep talks to author Richard Kreitner about his new book entitled, Break It Up: Secession, Division, and the Secret History of America's Imperfect Union.
Lesley M.M. Blume's new book tells the story of John Hersey, the young journalist whose on-the-ground reporting in Hiroshima, Japan, exposed the world to the devastation of nuclear weapons.
Alice Randall's innovative new novel chronicles the history of Black Detroit beyond Motown, and features a cast of real life artists, doctors, sports figures, activists and movers and shakers.
Author Ariel Sabar explores the lives of Harvard's Karen King and of Walter Fritz, the porn producer who convinced her the papyrus fragment he gave her — "The Gospel of Jesus's Wife" — was genuine.
Before working in TV animation (Bojack Horseman, Tuca & Bertie), Lisa Hanawalt chronicled her obsessions in a funny, filthy minicomic series that's been reprinted — with a wry update.
The Miami Herald columnist's new novel is a mystery featuring wealthy widows, the president and first lady, a scrappy wildlife removal specialist, and some gigantic Burmese pythons.
George Orwell's anti-tyranny fable Animal Farm turns 75 this week. We examine what Orwell was thinking when he wrote it, why it's lasted so long and what we can learn from it today.
Kids' books columnist Juanita Giles says message books are often nutritious and boring — but LeBron James's new I Promise combines beautiful art with real emotional impact that her kids loved.
"I was really trying to look at why a 19-year-old boy would give up everything ... in order, quite literally, to take up arms against the world," says novelist Fatima Bhutto.
NPR's Leila Fadel speaks with Nina Jankowicz, a disinformation fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and author of the new book How to Lose the Information War.
M.T. Anderson's new graphic novel — with gorgeous art by Jo Rioux — adapts the old legend of the drowned city of Ys, giving it better, fuller female characters and a timely environmental message.
The Catholic nun became an opponent of the death penalty following the events in her book Dead Man Walking. She details her spiritual journey in River of Fire. Originally broadcast Aug. 12, 2019.
Poet and novelist Charles Bukowski was notorious for his drinking and womanizing. Some called him a misogynist. But his work could also be tender and reveal truths about the human condition.
Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X are frequently seen as opposing forces in the struggle for civil rights but Peniel Joseph, author of The Sword and the Shield, says the truth is more nuanced.
Marjoleine Kars recounts a tale of oppression, bloodshed, and some triumph in her previously untold account of the 1763-64 slave rebellion in Dutch Berbice, modern day Guyana.
Political consultant Stuart Stevens says the Republican Party's support for Trump reflects the abandonment of principles it claimed to embrace, such as fiscal restraint and personal responsibility.
Hill's election to Congress in 2018 seemed like a sign of progress. A year later, she resigned after admitting to an affair with a young staffer, documented by her husband, and leaked to the press.
Isabel Wilkerson's second book is a masterwork of writing — a profound achievement of scholarship and research that stands, also, as a triumph of both visceral storytelling and cogent analysis.
Linden A. Lewis's debut novel — first in a trilogy — mixes swashbuckling, social commentary and compelling queer characters in its tale of three warring factions in a spacefaring society.
Alexis Daria's soapy, sizzling new novel follows two telenovela actors who fall for each other while playing bitter exes — and have to figure out how to balance private love and public stardom.
Hall of Famer Satchel Paige started his career pitching in the Negro leagues and later became a major league star. Author Larry Tye tells his story in Satchel. Originally broadcast in 2010.
Throughout her essays, Melissa Faliveno is constantly straddling blurry lines, never willing to let any of her topics lie comfortably still, always turning them over to look at another facet.
Whatever you expected from Tamsyn Muir's followup to her lesbian-necromancers-in-space epic Gideon the Ninth, this is not that book — it's something wilder, darker and much, much weirder.
The animated series spoofs Trek with in-jokes and easter eggs and even if the gags aren't yet firing on all nacelles, the premise — Starfleet's D-listers — holds promise.
