NPR's Book of the Day

The titular protagonist of Meredith, Alone has not left her home in three years. In today's episode, author Claire Alexander tells NPR's Scott Simon about the character's self-imposed isolation, and how trauma from earlier in life can leave long-lasting impacts on a person's mental health. And yet Meredith's trauma doesn't define her – so Alexander explains why she wanted to write a story that pro...

Today's episode is all about family. First, Ann Napolitano speaks with NPR's Scott Simon about her new novel, Hello Beautiful , and the intergenerational trauma that can surface even when everything seems perfect on the outside. Then, Simon asks Jenny Jackson about her funny yet thought-provoking debut, Pineapple Street , which follows three women from a well-off Brooklyn family taking stock of th...

Imposter Syndrome and Other Confessions of Alejandra Kim follows a Korean-Argentinian teen's journey to understanding who she is. Through the comfort of her multicultural home in Queens to the hallways of her ultra-woke, elite prep school in Manhattan, Alejandra grapples with academics, the politics of school lunch, and even a microaggression from her own teacher. As author Patricia Park tells Her...

Debra Lee is one of the most influential women in the entertainment industry. But as the former CEO of Black Entertainment Television reveals in her new book, I Am Debra Lee:A Memoir , there are both personal and professional obstacles to navigating corporate leadership – especially as a Black woman. Lee opens up to Here & Now 's Celeste Headlee about the behind-the-scenes reality of her career, f...

The title of Esther Yi's novel Y/N refers to an abbreviation for "your name" as it appears in a type of fan fiction where readers put themselves into a story. It's a way to inhabit another life, which is exactly what Yi's central character wants — but can never have. That tension drives the novel, as it explores loneliness, fandom, and K-Pop. Yi tells NPR's Ailsa Chang how it all fits together. Se...

Why does poverty persist in one of the world's wealthiest countries? Because it's profitable, argues sociologist Matthew Desmond, in Poverty, By America. He tells NPR's Ayesha Rascoe why wealthier Americans benefit from forces that keep their fellow citizens from growing richer — forces like predatory financial services, stagnant wages, and rising housing costs. See pcm.adswizz.com for information...

Today's episode is all about tech. First, Paul Scharre of the Center for a New American Security speaks with NPR's Ari Shapiro about his new book, Four Battlegrounds: Power in the Age of Artificial Intelligence, and the ways autocratic governments can rely on AI for repressive surveillance tactics. Then, Duke University professor Nita Farahany and NPR's Ailsa Chang discuss a potential nightmare: e...

Paris Hilton is ubiquitous with early 2000s pop culture: She graced the cover of magazines, her own reality TV show and even Billboard charts. But the heiress now says she was playing a character – one she built to hide from the trauma she endured earlier in her life. In Paris: The Memoir , Hilton finally takes control of her own narrative. She spoke to NPR's Juana Summers about what made her want...

Author Dina Nayeri was young when she found out that there's a stark difference between credibility and belief – and it's a disconnect at the center of her new book, Who Gets Believed?: When the Truth Isn't Enough. Nayeri's family came to the U.S. as refugees from Iran in 1979. As she tells NPR's Juana Summers, that asylum process showed her how subjective belief can be – and she explains why, for...

Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai's new novel, Dust Child , takes a closer look at the often-fraught relationships between Vietnamese women and American soldiers during the war. In today's episode, the author tells NPR's Scott Simon how she was always fascinated by the stories of the forgotten children from those relationships – often left behind, abandoned, and raised with a deep resentment for their mixed roo...

Edith Wilson dated and then married Woodrow Wilson while he served as president of the United States in 1915. In her new biography, Untold Power: The Fascinating Rise and Complex Legacy of First Lady Edith Wilson , author Rebecca Boggs Roberts – daughter of the late NPR founding mother Cokie Roberts – explores Wilson's influential role in her husband's administration. But as Roberts tells NPR's St...

Today's episode is all about sports. First, The Athletic reporter Evan Drellich speaks with NPR's A Martinez about his investigation into the Astros' 2017 World Series win and subsequent cheating scandal, which is closely examined in Drellich's new book, Winning Fixes Everything . Then, NPR's Juana Summers sits down with former NFL player Colin Kaepernick to discuss his new graphic memoir, Change...

Who would Travis Bickle– the protagonist of the 1976 film Taxi Driver – be today? That question sparked the new novel by Priya Guns, Your Driver Is Waiting . It follows Damani, a queer Tamil ride-share driver who is struggling to pay her bills while people on the street around her protest for cause after cause that she can't seem to keep track of. Then she meets Jolene, who is the epitome of the p...

Katherine May, like so many other people, found herself submerged in anxiety and restlessness during COVID-19 lockdowns. But as cities reopened, she looked for new ways to immerse herself in the awe of the natural world around her. That journey is at the center of her new book, Enchantment . And as she tells NPR's Rachel Martin, her relationship with her faith, prayer and her definition of God pla...

Ruthy Ramirez, the 13-year-old middle child of a Puerto Rican family in Staten Island, vanished without a trace. But more than a decade later, as the family still feels the weight of her absence, one of her sisters spots a woman who she thinks might be her sister on a reality TV show. In her new novel, What Happened to Ruthy Ramirez , author Claire Jimenez explores the way loss, violence and spect...

Margaret Atwood has been writing for a long time – and as she tells NPR's Leila Fadel, the world looks very different today than it did when she started. Her new collection of short stories, Old Babes in the Wood , provides different approaches to the passing of time. There's a couple that's facing the realities of aging; there's a conversation with George Orwell, who Atwood says drastically chang...

Today's episode focuses on two pretty different graphic memoirs. First, artist Kendra Neely – who survived the 2015 shooting at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon – speaks to NPR's Juana Summers about processing the trauma and grief following that day's events in her new memoir, Numb to This. Through illustrations, Neely captures the oversaturation she still feels every time news of a sh...

Describing home for journalist Gulchehra Hoja is complicated. She's from western China, in the Xinjiang province. But as she tells NPR's Steve Inskeep, she considers the Uyghur region –which was formerly free – her native country. Her new memoir, A Stone Is Most Precious Where It Belongs , navigates the difficult and often painful reality of growing up proud of her heritage but under a Chinese nat...

Patrick Bringley worked in events planning at The New Yorker – until his older brother got diagnosed with cancer and passed away. That loss led to a reimagining of priorities for Bringley, who decided to seek solace in one of the most beautiful places he could think of: The Metropolitan Museum of Art. His new memoir, All the Beauty in the World , retraces his journey to becoming a museum guard and...

Beth Moore was raised in the Southern Baptist Convention. As an adult, she went on to become an evangelist, teaching Bible studies to women in arenas around the world. But as she recounts in her new memoir, All My Knotted-Up Life , she grew up feeling a deep shame – and surviving sexual abuse at home – that reached a breaking point with the surfacing of the Donald Trump "Access Hollywood" tape and...

The critically acclaimed poet Camonghne Felix says that people going through breakups are not often treated with the same grace or generosity as those who've experienced self-harm or sexual assault. But in her new memoir, Dyscalculia , she explores the ways romantic pain and loss requires its own kind of grief – and the amount of honesty that it requires to truly heal from heartbreak. In today's e...

Today's episode features interviews with two people who've given a lot of thought to capitalism's role in modern society. First, Sen. Bernie Sanders speaks with NPR's Steve Inskeep about his new book, It's OK to be Angry About Capitalism , and how he views the way politicians appeal to the working class – oftentimes, he says, without addressing the root of the problems they're facing. Then, NPR's...

Willie Mae Brown was a little girl in Selma, Alabama in the 1960s. In her new YA book, My Selma , she recalls growing up during the height of the Civil Rights Movement in the South. As she tells Here & Now 's Robin Young, those core childhood memories include going to church to see Martin Luther King, Jr. speak – which moved Brown's mother to tears as she held the author – and her siblings getting...

Early on in The Darker the Night , the debut thriller from NPR producer Martin Patience, an investigative reporter links a murder in Glasgow to a significant political figure: the first minister of the Scottish government. As Patience tells NPR's Scott Simon, the story that ensues draws larger questions about journalists and their sources – particularly within governments and police departments –...

Jean D'Amérique says he grew up in a neighborhood where "it was easier to find a gun than a book." But as he tells NPR's Ari Shapiro, falling in love with reading and writing changed the course of his life. His new novel, A Sun to Be Sewn , follows a young protagonist growing up in rough circumstances in Port au Prince: her father's a gang leader, her mother's a sex worker. But she's finding her w...