NPR's Book of the Day

When Rabia Chaudry's family moved from Pakistan to the U.S., her parents fully embraced the processed foods lining the grocery store aisles. But as the author and attorney got older, she began to associate eating with shame and secrecy. Her new memoir, Fatty Fatty Boom Boom , recounts how her outlook on food changed as she understood her own mom's eating patterns. In this episode, Chaudry tells NP...

In this episode, two cookbook authors recount their relationship with food and how it's led them to unlikely places. First, actor and TikTok sensation Tabitha Brown tells NPR's Michel Martin about going vegan and connecting with an online audience through plant-based recipes. Then, restaurant owner Kardea Brown talks to Here & Now's Celeste Headlee about connecting with her family's roots in the k...

Blair Braverman knows the great outdoors. So it makes sense that the American adventurer and "Naked And Afraid" contestant's first novel, Small Game , takes place in the wilderness. She tells NPR's Ayesha Rascoe about some of her own fears while competing in the Discovery Channel series – and how they manifested themselves in her first foray into fiction. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about...

Isabella and Ha are twin sisters, but they grew up oceans apart. Isabella was adopted by a white American couple in Illinois, while Ha was raised by her maternal aunt in Vietnam. In this episode, journalist Erika Hayasaki discusses her reporting of over five years, which follows how the girls came back together and built a relationship. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and...

Bono probably needs no introduction at this point. In this episode, the U2 frontman, philanthropist and now author sits down with NPR's Rachel Martin to talk about his new memoir, Surrender. He explains how his connection to a higher spiritual power works with rock-and-roll across U2's discography, and why he's reached a point in his life where he just wants to "shut up and listen." See pcm.adswiz...

Jonathan Escoffery's debut collection of short stories follows the American-born son of Jamaican immigrants finding his place in the world and within his own family. Inspired by some of his own life experiences, If I Survive You questions what it means to belong, how culture is shared across generations, and why people migrate in the first place. Escoffery tells Here & Now's Deepa Fernandes that h...

The two books in today's episode explore how we construct meaning from the music we listen to. First, record producer Susan Rogers talks to WBUR's Robin Young about her book, This Is What It Sounds Like, which breaks down the science behind what draws different types of listeners to particular songs. Then, author Francesca Royster traces the relationship between Black identity and country music in...

In this episode, NPR's Scott Simon pays best-selling author John Irving a visit in his Toronto home. Across from Irving's family photographs and slanted writing station, they discuss the writer's expansive career, the prevalence of gender and sexual politics in his novels and the newfound personal connection he can make with his characters. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection...

The U.S. is highly polarized – and author Anand Giridharadas thinks writing off people with different opinions is only going to make things worse. In this episode, he tells NPR's Steve Inskeep about some of the activists and leaders he talked to for his new book, The Persuaders, and how their mission to actually listen and engage with the other side of the political aisle could actually save democ...

Author Dani Shapiro spent 15 years working on Signal Fires , a novel about how a single accident changes the course of one family's life. In this episode, she tells NPR's Scott Simon how her own trajectory to completing the book upended what she thought she knew about herself and her upbringing. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and t...

Abraham Lincoln made history in 1863 when he issued the Emancipation Proclamation, effectively freeing enslaved people across the U.S. But he expected it to cost him reelection. In his new book, And There Was Light , Pulitzer prize-winning biographer Jon Meacham dives into how Lincoln's moral vision allowed him to stand his ground, even in the face of great criticism. Meacham tells NPR's Steve Ins...

In this episode, we share two interviews on novels that explore how horror can be found within – and beyond – the laws of nature. First, Megan Miranda takes NPR's Elissa Nadworny into the North Carolina woods to set the scene for her book, The Last to Vanish , about disappearing hikers. Then, Stephen King and his son Owen tell Mary Louise Kelly about the supernatural rage that overcomes the women...

Pulitzer Prize winning-author Annie Proulx tells Leila Fadel that she learns by writing. So when she wanted to better understand the wetlands – and how they're being affected by the climate crisis – she dove into nonfiction. Her new book, Fen, Bog & Swamp , does not concern itself with how the natural world serves humans, but rather how it serves itself. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about o...

Poet and filmmaker Fatimah Asghar lost their parents at a young age. But they tell Scott Simon that they didn't grow up with a lot of stories that accurately captured the experience of being an orphan. In their debut novel, When We Were Sisters , Asghar describes life on the margins for three Muslim-American siblings left to raise one another. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collecti...

Geena Davis is no stranger to the spotlight. But in her new memoir, Dying of Politeness , the Academy Award-winning actor remembers growing up full of insecurities and self-criticisms. She tells Rachel Martin that acting gave her the "ability to be somebody else" – and over time, she gained her confidence by watching none other than her Thelma and Louise co-star, Susan Sarandon, walk through the w...

April Ryan and Ayesha Rascoe both know what it's like to cover the White House as Black women. In this episode, the two journalists discuss the importance of taking up space and looking out for one another in that environment, including throughout the Trump presidency. Ryan's new book, Black Women Will Save the World , combines memoir, reporting and analysis to highlight the strength of trailblaze...

In this episode, we share two interviews on books that look at the ways in which food and family go hand in hand. First, NPR's Scott Simon talks to singer Linda Ronstadt about her memoir Feels Like Home , in which she writes about living by the Mexican-American border and how food brought her closer to those around her. Then, Scott Simon visits French chef Jaques Pepin at his house to talk about h...

Young adult author Emiko Jean is out with her first book for adults – Mika in Real Life . In this episode, we hear Jean in conversation with WBUR's Celeste Headlee about the book, in which a teen girl – Penny – tries to connect with her birth mother Mika. Jean says that just as Penny and Mika struggle to figure out who they are, much of the book mirrors the author's own identity struggle as a Japa...

In this episode, WBUR's Robin Young talks with author Andrew Sean Greer about his new novel Less is Lost , the sequel to his Pulitzer Prize-winning Less . This time, Greer's protagonist Arthur Less takes a tour of America in a van, and in the process learns about what it means to be an author today. Less is disappointed by how things are going, but doesn't realize how good things actually are for...

In her memoir Making a Scene , actress Constance Wu writes about the sexual harassment and abuse she faced on her breakout show Fresh off the Boat, and why she hesitated to speak out at first. She tells WBUR's Scott Tong that "trauma and feelings don't go away simply because you will them to." And when she finally spoke up about that trauma on social media, she received a wave of online hate. A wa...

Celeste Ng's new novel Our Missing Hearts is set in a dystopian America, where children are taken away from their parents. The story is told from the perspective of a 12-year-old boy who goes in search of his missing mother. In an interview with NPR's Ayesha Rascoe, Ng says she wanted to look at how people rationalize their faith in institutions, and how willing they are to look away from somethin...

In this episode, we hear two interviews with author Namwali Serpell. Her two novels look at some variation on what it means to be part of a mixed-race family. First, NPR's Scott Simon talks to Serpell about her 2019 debut The Old Drift in which the author considers how immigrants that came to Zambia gave the country a new identity through unity and love. Then, Serpell and NPR's Juana Summers discu...

This conversation between NPR's Ailsa Chang and actor Brandon Kyle Goodman looks at authentic relationships and the performance of queerness. Goodman is Black, non-binary, and grew up in a religious household. Among humorous stories of love – and self-love – their new book You Gotta Be You: How to Embrace This Messy Life and Step Into Who You Really Are touches on dating, white privilege, and dati...

Rob Roth's new play in book form, WARHOLCAPOTE, is what he calls a "non-fiction invention," created from found tapes of conversations between artist Andy Warhol and writer Truman Capote. In a conversation with Scott Simon, Roth sheds light on the two men's loneliness, their recognition of both talent and pain in each other, and how they turned the way they fathomed the world into art. See pcm.adsw...

In Brown and Gay in LA , author Anthony Christian Ocampo interviews more than 60 gay sons of immigrant families about the fears that come with living as gay men. He discusses with A Martinez the complex relationships they have with their parents — the respect they have for their parents as immigrants, but also the pain they carry from coming out to them. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about o...