NPR's Book of the Day

Oklahoma state Rep. Regina Goodwin is a descendant of survivors of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. The racist violence, which killed hundreds of Black Tulsans and burned the city's Greenwood District – known as Black Wall Street – is the subject of journalist Victor Luckerson's new book, Built from the Fire. In today's episode, both Goodwin and Luckerson join NPR's Michel Martin to discuss how for m...

Today's episode features interviews with two very high-profile officials who have written thrillers. First, voting rights activist and former Georgia state representative Stacey Abrams speaks with NPR's Michel Martin about her new thriller, Rogue Justice , which follows Supreme Court clerk Avery Keene as she uncovers how surveillance, blackmail and a murder reveal concerning truths about America's...

Jennifer De Leon's new YA novel, Borderless , tells the story of a Guatemalan teenager named Maya. Though she has a rich and fulfilling life in her home country, circumstances arise that push Maya and her mother towards the U.S. border, where they're separated by immigration officials. In today's episode, De Leon speaks with Here & Now 's Deepa Fernandes about complicating the image of what a migr...

Elise Hu moved to Seoul, South Korea to set up an NPR bureau and report on the geopolitical tensions of the mid-2010s. But her new book, Flawless: Lessons in Looks and Culture from the K-Beauty Capital , focuses on a different, albeit inescapable, part of life there – beauty standards and the industry driving them. In today's episode, Hu speaks with NPR's Brittany Luse about the consumerism, gende...

In Nicole Cuffy's novel, Dances , CeCe Cordell becomes the first Black woman to be named principal dancer at a major ballet company; but this big break also comes with big expectations. In today's episode, Cuffy speaks with NPR's Juana Summers about how CeCe navigates the world of ballet's preoccupation with white bodies, how it affects her relationship with her mother and brother, and how Misty C...

Journalist Rachel Louise Snyder has covered gender-based violence around the world for a number of media outlets and in her widely-acclaimed book, No Visible Bruises . But in her new memoir, Women We Buried, Women We Burned , she examines the role it played in her own life. After the loss of her mother early in life, Snyder was raised in a strict evangelical household, where corporal punishment wa...

Today's episode features interviews with two poets who revealed different sides of themselves through memoirs. First, Maggie Smith speaks with NPR's Miles Parks about You Could Make This Place Beautiful , and how virality and the dissolution of her marriage impacted her writing. Then, Kwame Alexander discusses Why Fathers Cry at Night with NPR's Michel Martin, which highlights the different kinds...

Kennedy Ryan's The Kingmaker portrays two seemingly opposite characters – a Yavapai-Apache activist and the heir to an oil fortune – falling in love, and dealing with the complicated fallout of their differences. In today's episode, Ryan speaks with NPR's Chloe Veltman about how she approached writing an indigenous character and community she herself is not a part of, and how powerful storytellers...

For decades, male editors told women they couldn't be reporters because of congenital inaccuracies, or because they required having a male escort to report at night. In her new book, Undaunted: How Women Changed American Journalism , Brooke Kroeger provides a historical record of reporters like Ida B. Wells, Nellie Bly, and Gloria Steinem, who went ahead and did it anyway. Kroeger spoke with NPR's...

Alex is 22 years old and staying with a much older, wealthy man in the Hamptons. She's the protagonist of Emma Cline's new novel, an outsider looking in at the perfectly pruned life people of a certain social status lead in these towns. In today's episode, Cline speaks with NPR's Mary Louise Kelly about how her heroine navigates the unfamiliar world she finds herself in, and how power is so unequa...

It's been three years since George Floyd's murder. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison prosecuted the former police officers who killed Floyd, but accountability and justice is not always found in state-sponsored violence against Black Americans. In his new book, Break the Wheel: Ending the Cycle of Police Violence , Ellison retraces the case. As he tells NPR's Leila Fadel, the book – and his...

Today's episode features interviews with two monumental performers. First, Jerry Seinfeld chats with Here & Now's Robin Young about his new book, inspired by his Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee series, and the kinship between performers in that industry. Then, Tom Hanks speaks with NPR's A Martinez about his new novel, The Making of Another Motion Picture Masterpiece , an ode to all the people an...

Before author Cassandra Jackson was even born, her father's family suffered a major loss – a car accident that resulted in the deaths of five people, including Jackson's aunt and grandmother. In her new memoir, The Wreck , Jackson attempts to understand the tragedy that shaped her upbringing and dives into the grief she's carried with her for as long as she can remember. In today's episode, she te...

As a certified personal trainer, Justice Roe Williams knows the benefits of exercising regularly– but as a Black trans man, he's also experienced how the gym can be far from welcoming. In today's episode, he speaks with NPR's Juana Summers – also a certified trainer – about the new anthology he co-edited, Deconstructing the Fitness Industrial Complex: How to Resist, Disrupt, and Reclaim What it Me...

Early in the novel Yellowface , a prominent Asian-American writer, Athena Liu, dies. Her white friend, who is struggling to break through in publishing and witnesses Athena's accident, then seizes on an opportunity: to pass off Athena's words – and identity – as her own. In today's episode, real life author R.F. Kuang speaks with NPR's Mary Louise Kelly about her new book, and how it unravels the...

King:A Life , the new biography by Jonathan Eig, provides a fresh perspective into the life of one of America's most important activists. From his upbringing in Atlanta's Old Fourth Ward neighborhood to his path through university and the frontlines of the Montgomery bus boycott, Martin Luther King, Jr.'s career and impact is explained through his faith and relationships. In today's episode, Eig s...

Today's episode is about untangling and understanding untold family stories. First, Burkhard Bilger speaks with NPR's Scott Simon about his memoir, Fatherland , which explores his grandfather's role in the Nazi party in Europe. Then, Aaron Hamburger tells NPR's Sacha Pfeiffer about his novel Hotel Cuba , inspired by his grandmother's immigration story from Russia to Cuba on her quest to get to the...

Suitcases symbolize a lot for three-time Grammy winner Lucinda Williams. She tells NPR's Juana Summers she keeps a briefcase of musical references to help with her songwriting. In her new memoir, Don't Tell Anybody the Secrets I Told You , she also writes about moving from place to place as a child – she'd lived in 12 places by age 18 – because of her father's work. In today's episode, Williams re...

Dating can be difficult and confusing at any age – but especially after the end of a 36-year arranged marriage. The characters of Deepa Varadarajan's debut novel, Late Bloomers , are experiencing that second chance firsthand. Parents Suresh and Lata have just split and are learning to navigate dating online and IRL; their kids are fielding relationship troubles of their own. In today's episode, th...

Matika Wilbur is from the Swinomish and Tulalip tribes in Washington state. In 2012, she left Seattle with one goal: to photograph and interview members of all 562 federally recognized Native American Tribal Nations. The result, Project 562 , weaves together nuanced and detailed portraits of Indigenous cultures, both visually and narratively. Wilbur tells NPR's Melissa Block about why she wanted t...

The Covenant of Water follows three generations of a family in the coastal state of Kerala, India, where they're haunted by a devastating event, over and over: In every generation, someone in the family drowns. In today's episode, Dr. Abraham Verghese tells NPR's Ari Shapiro about the medical themes in the novel, and how his daytime occupation as a physician and professor at Stanford University in...

Today's episode features two novels with two very different protagonists, though their journeys might have more in common than appears at first glance. First, Stephen Buoro discusses The Five Sorrowful Mysteries of Andy Africa with NPR's Camila Domonoske, which follows a young Nigerian man's obsession with whiteness. Then, NPR's Scott Simon asks Max Porter about Shy , a short novel depicting a Bri...

Actor Rainn Wilson says he's "always identified as being a dork and a misfit and an outsider." In fact, he says that's probably why he found so much success playing Dwight Schrute in The Office . But in real life, Wilson attributes his dorkiness to how uncool it was to be "the God guy" in the New York acting scene, causing him to shy away from it. In his new book, Soul Boom , he details the monume...

Miles Morales, the beloved protagonist of Jason Reynolds' Spider-Man novel, is back. And this time, he's dealing with in-school suspension for challenging his history teacher at an elite Brooklyn private school. But between writing poetry about his new crush and saving the world, the young, Black and Puerto Rican superhero also stumbles into some major themes about racism and censorship. Reynolds...

For poet Camille Dungy, environmental justice, community interdependence and political engagement go hand in hand. She explores those relationships in her new book, Soil: The Story of a Black Mother's Garden . In it, she details how her experience trying to diversify the species growing in her yard, in a predominantly white town in Colorado, reflects larger themes of how we talk about land and rac...