NPR's Book of the Day

The protagonist of Susanna Hoffs' debut novel, Jane Start, probably listens to Dionne Warwick to hype herself up in the morning. Start is 33 and living with her parents – her days of pop stardom, for one song, are 10 years behind her. But in This Bird Has Flown , a romantic spark reignites a second chance for her creative endeavors, too. In today's episode, Hoffs tells NPR's Andrew Limbong how her...

Today's episode features two children's books about Indigenous Americans. Here & Now's Deepa Fernandes speaks with author Carole Lindstrom and illustrator Steph Littlebird about their new picture book My Powerful Hair , which tells the story of a girl who grows her hair long, something her grandmother was not allowed to do. Then, NPR's Miles Parks talks with Traci Sorell and Arigon Starr about Con...

Congresswoman and former professor Katie Porter is known for showing up to hearings with a whiteboard to explain complicated topics. She's now written a book about her life, including what it takes to be a working mom in Congress. One of several prominent Democrats running for the Senate in California, Porter talked with NPR's Juana Summers abouther new memoir I Swear: Politics Is Messier Than My...

NPR's Andrew Limbong talks with Dionne Ford about her new book, Go Back and Get It: A Memoir of Race, Inheritance, and Intergenerational Healing . In it, Ford grapples with an old family photograph showing her great-great-grandmother, Tempy Burton, who was enslaved by Colonel W.R. Stuart, her great-great grandfather. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data...

In the new children's book The Rhythm of Time from crime writer S.A. Cosby and musician Questlove, time is like a song. That's what they told NPR's Ayesha Roscoe when they talked about their book, which follows a kid from Philly and his best friend as they travel back in time to see a rap group from the 90s that broke up. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal...

In her new memoir, All Things Considered co-host Mary Louise Kelly talks about the time she got a call from her son's school nurse while she was boarding a Black Hawk helicopter in Baghdad. Kelly joined NPR's Scott Simon to discuss this and other stories she shares in It. Goes. So. Fast. The Year of No Do-Overs – which follows Kelly as she looks at the balance of work and motherhood, intention and...

Today's episode starts with a familiar feeling – the way your heart drops when a book character that you love doesn't get the outcome you wanted for them. But the authors we hear from both took that and ran with it, writing new outcomes for the women of Greek mythology they think are misunderstood. First, Madeline Miller tells NPR's Barrie Hardymon about her novel Circe , which details the goddess...

Reginald Dwayne Betts and Titus Kaphar knew they were meant to work together when they first met. In 2019, they exhibited a project at MoMA PS1 that explored criminal justice through redacted court documents turned into poems and visual artworks. Now, that exhibit is a book called Redaction . They tell NPR's Juana Summers about how they both employ their mediums to capture the effects of incarcera...

Donal Ryan's new novel, The Queen of Dirt Island , centers its women characters. He tells NPR's Mary Louise Kelly that making the men peripheral wasn't his goal – "it just kind of happened." In today's episode, he explains how a childhood spent listening to his grandmother, sister and neighbors in his mom's kitchen inspired the voices in the book, and why he wrote with a strict word count in mind...

Today's episode is a true story that reads like a novel. In 2006, author and labor organizer Saket Soni received a call from an Indian migrant worker. He was one of hundreds of men hired by Signal International to fix hurricane-ravaged oil rigs in Mississippi and asked to pay $20,000 under the impression it would go towards green card expenses. But as Soni explains in his new book, The Great Escap...

Ari Shapiro's voice might be familiar to listeners for a number of reasons. He's one of the hosts of All Things Considered; he also sings and tours with the band Pink Martini, sometimes in places with languages he doesn't speak – as he tells NPR's Steve Inskeep. In today's episode, the NPR journalist talks about his new memoir, The Best Strangers in the World , and opens up about the way he brings...

Today's episode covers two very different stories involving personal loss and what comes after. First, author Laura Braitman tells NPR's Sacha Pfeiffer about her memoir, What Looks Like Bravery , and how her father's death earlier in life pushed her to unhealthily lean into academic and professional achievements as a coping mechanism. Then, NPR's Rachel Martin sits down with The Atlantic 's Jennif...

In a small North Carolina town in 1976, three siblings are shot to death. That's the mystery at the center of De'Shawn Charles Winslow's new book, Decent People – and it's one the segregated town's white police officers aren't paying much attention to. In today's episode, Winslow tells NPR's Scott Simon about the heroine who takes it upon herself to solve the case, and why - the author feels a nee...

Author Azar Nafisi has written a love letter to literature and reading in Read Dangerously: The Subversive Power of Literature in Troubled Times . She does this in a series of letters to her late father who passed on in 2004. Nafisi says that reading can help us really live and also help us, and has helped her, survive challenging times. Nafisi told NPR's Scott Simon that literature's purpose is t...

From Notting Hill to the real-life relationships of several SNL writers with Hollywood starlets – to even the new Barbie movie tagline ("She's everything. He's just Ken.") – there's a recurring storyline in pop culture of ordinary guys dating up , falling in love with glamorous women who are seemingly out of their league. In her new book, Romantic Comedy , Curtis Sittenfeld shakes up these gender...

Amina Al-Sirafi, the protagonist of Shannon Chakraborty's new novel, commanded the Indian Ocean as one of its most notorious pirates during the 12th century. But when the story kicks off, Al-Sirafi is focused on raising her daughter, trying to live a peaceful life with her pirate days far behind her. The tale pulls Chakraborty's character back to her heyday in the waters – and as the author tells...

Today's episode is all about the complexities of sibling relationships, especially when the family is surrounded by hostile circumstances. First, NPR's Miles Parks speaks with Ari Tison about her new novel, Saints of the Household , which follows two mixed-race brothers navigating high school under their white father's abuse. Then, NPR's Ayesha Rascoe gets to talking with Rachel Eve Moulton about...

Sathnam Sanghera's new book, Empireland , focuses on how British imperialism shaped the trajectory of that country's history. But as he emphasizes in his opening chapter, the U.S. – much like the rest of the world – is not exempt from being a part of that story. In today's episode, Sanghera speaks with NPR's Scott Simon about how he came to understand that fraught history through his own personal...

Tanner and Louise have a 63 year age difference and pretty opposite personalities: Tanner is a former college athlete, hitting what she thinks is rock bottom after dropping out. Louise is the eccentric elderly lady she gets hired to take care of. But in Colleen Oakley's new novel, The Mostly True Story of Tanner and Louise , the two women forge an unlikely friendship when Louise's past forces them...

Nicole Chung's first memoir, All You Can Ever Know , recounts her story growing up adopted – a young Asian American woman in a predominantly white town in Oregon — and her journey to retrace her roots. Her new memoir, A Living Remedy , takes a closer look at Chung's adoptive parents and their financial struggles throughout her life, up until they both died within a year of each other. As she tells...

The egg can be found anywhere from a breakfast plate to an Easter basket to a science museum. As author Lizzie Stark details in her new book, Egg: A Dozen Ovatures , the egg is not just an intrinsic part of many culinary traditions – it's also a cultural and artistic symbol across a variety of cultures. And as she tells Here & Now 's Jane Clayson, yes – it did come before the chicken. See pcm.adsw...

Today's episode features two books examining the sacrifices made by enslaved people in the U.S. First, NPR's Steve Inskeep speaks with author Ilyan Woo about Master, Slave, Husband, Wife . It's a true story about a young couple that poses as an elderly white man and his slave in order to escape the South. Then, author Kai Thomas tells NPR's Ari Shapiro about how his novel, In the Upper Country , t...

Comedy writer Kashana Cauley grew up watching the film Conspiracy Theory , starring Mel Gibson and Julia Roberts, with her parents. She says that's likely her earliest entryway into a world she explores in her debut novel, The Survivalists – it follows a millennial lawyer falling in with a community of doomsday preppers. In this episode, Cauley tells NPR's Juana Summers about the control people mi...

Novelist Barbara Kingsolver loves living in the Appalachian hills of southwestern Virginia. But she says she feels that the region is often misconstrued by mainstream media. Her new book, Demon Copperhead , follows a young boy grappling with the consequences of loss, addiction and poverty – but also finding ways to survive through creativity and imagination. In this episode, Kingsolver speaks with...

Jessica Johns' thriller, Bad Cree , opens with a startling image: a severed crow's head in someone's hand. In today's episode, Johns tells NPR's Ayesha Rascoe she hoped that image would set the tone for the winding mystery within her new novel. It follows a young Cree woman who returns to a home and culture she left behind in hopes of helping her cope with grief. Much of Mackenzie's story involves...