NPR's Book of the Day

If you could go back in time to when you were 16 years old, what would you change? This question is at the heart of Emma Straub's new novel, This Time Tomorrow, a story about a father-daughter relationship that gives readers a more intimate and personal exploration of time travel. In an interview with All Things Considered, Straub told Mary Louise Kelly that she wrote the novel in 2020 as a way to...

It's estimated that more than 1 million Uyghur Muslims have been detained in camps in China, where they may be subjected to forced labor, sexual violence, torture, and religious restrictions. Today, we explore two nonfiction books that help understand the crisis. First, Geoffrey Cain speaks to Scott Tong on Here and Now about his book The Perfect Police State , an overview of the surveillance tech...

Just like every person has a story, every recipe has a memory. For famous chef Rick Martínez, those memories often come from his time in Mexico, where he traveled through the country's 32 states stepping into kitchens, houses, and markets learning from locals how to make true, authentic Mexican food. For Morning Edition, Martinez invited Rachel Martin into his kitchen, where they cooked Salsa de C...

Can humans and sea creatures communicate? In Shelby Van Pelt's first novel, Remarkably Bright Creatures , they sure can –and they do. The story centers around an octopus in captivity and his relationship to Tova, a grieving 70-year-old woman who cleans the aquarium at night. In an interview with All Things Considered, Van Pelt told Adrian Florido that the idea came to her while thinking about the...

Two teenagers in love, in a whole lot of trouble, and on a road trip across the country. It's the plot of Bud Smith's novel Teenager , a Bonnie and Clyde-type story that blends romance, crime, and adventure to explore the complexities of adolescent love and juvenile crime. In an interview with Scott Simon on Weekend Edition, Smith said he wanted readers to not only get to know the characters profo...

As secretary of defense for President Trump, Mark Esper was privy to a lot of the inner workings of the administration. In his new book, A Sacred Oath , he brings readers into the room with him, showing how certain controversial decisions were being made and how some others were prevented. In an interview with All Things Considered, Esper told Michel Martin about the ethical dilemmas of working fo...

The Pulitzer Prize is one of the most prestigious awards in the country for writers... and last year's winners were just announced this week. So today, we're looking back at two nonfiction authors whose books won the accolade. First, journalist Andrea Elliot speaks to Jane Clyson on Here and Now about her book Invisible Child , the story of how a young child's life was directed by homelessness. Th...

Money is all things... or it can become all things, says Hernan Diaz, author of Trust . In his new book, readers are presented with narratives on wealth, reality, and a woman set on separating fact from fiction. In an interview on Weekend Edition Saturday, Diaz told Scott Simon that he thought a lot about money in the writing of this book, particularly about its power to warp and test reality. And...

In the aftermath of the Mexican war for independence, a new bride finds herself alone in a haunted house surrounded by people who don't believe her. It's the plot of Isabel Cañas' debut novel The Hacienda , where she blends romance, terror, and the supernatural to tell a story highly embedded with Mexican culture. In an interview with Weekend Edition Sunday, Cañas told Ayesha Rascoe about the them...

Minnie Driver's experience with fame has been what she calls "surreal." She's faced the paradox of fame: she wants to be seen, but not that much. In her new memoir Managing Expectations , the British-American actress opens up about the complicated relationships in her life, her childhood, her unexpected path to acting, and her experience as a single mother. In an interview with All Things Consider...

Despite the attention that Roe v. Wade has gotten throughout the years, there are still many details about the case that are obscure to the public. For one, the landmark case that legalized most abortions for women did not in fact end with an abortion. The baby, often referred to as Baby Roe, is Shelly Lynn Thornton, now a grown woman whose story is at the center of Joshua Prager's book The Family...

This weekend is Mother's Day, a good occasion to reflect on the art of parenting. First, comedian Glenn Boozan speaks to Celeste Headlee on Here and Now about her book There Are Moms Way Worse Than You , a joke-book that uses examples of bad parenting from the animal kingdom to soothe those who might be worried about their own child-raising skills. Then, an interview from our archives: a 1989 chat...

Dolen Perkins-Valdez says she's attracted to what she calls "silences in the archives," or – holes in our recollection in history, particularly those in African American history. In her new historical novel Take My Hand , she tackles forced sterilizations inspired by the 1973 case of the Relf sisters. On Weekend Edition Sunday, Perkins-Valdez told Ayesha Roscoe about her decision to tell this stor...

After writing his Pulitzer Prize-winning books The Underground Railroad and The Nickel Boys, author Colson Whitehead needed a change of pace. So for his next novel, Harlem Shuffle, he decided to tackle topics near and dear to his heart: heists and New York real estate. In today's episode, Morning Edition host Noel King talks to Whitehead about his book's protagonist, a furniture retailer named Ray...

For people with autism, simply existing in a neurotypical world can be exhausting. Many learn early on to employ certain strategies to fit in with others, a tactic often referred to as masking. Social psychologist Devon Price, author of Unmasking Autism , spoke to Eric Garcia on Life Kit about the freedom that comes from doing the opposite: unmasking. Price says neurodivergent people can find grea...

In 2017, Danica Roem became the first openly transgender woman in office when she was elected to the Virginia House of Delegates. In her new memoir, Burn the Page , she writes about the experiences that got her to that moment, the women who inspired her, and the ways in which she reclaimed her own narrative. In an interview on All Things Considered, Roem told Juana Summers that she wrote about thi...

Who made you the person you are? Today, we bring you two interviews from Black female authors who explore the impact that musicians, writers, and actresses had on their own artistic careers. First, Margo Jefferson, Pulitzer prize culture critic and celebrated memoirist, speaks to Ari Shapiro on All Things Considered about mixing memoir and criticism in her book to show both power and vulnerability...

New Yorker magazine cartoonist Liana Fink grew up in a Jewish household; she went to synagogue, attended Hebrew day school, and observed Shabbat. But noticing a drift between her religious practice and her interest in its traditional stories put her on a path to reclaim her faith on her own terms. The result is 'Let There Be Light,' a graphic novel that retells the Book of Genesis starring a woman...

According to Nina Jankowicz, a fellow at the Wilson Center known for her research on online disinformation, women face a disproportionate amount of attacks online. These range from physical insults to threats of violence, and they're forcing women – especially younger ones – to censor themselves out of fear of physical or emotional retribution. In her new book, How to Be a Woman Online , she offer...

Janelle Monáe's Afrofuturistic pop album 'Dirty Computer' was nominated for a Grammy in 2019. Now, Monáe brings the sci-fi world into literature through her latest collection of short stories The Memory Librarian . In an interview with Ayesha Rascoe on Weekend Edition Sunday, Monáe spoke about the nightmare that sparked this idea and how it prompted her to reclaim her full identity as a Black, que...

After more than a dozen novels and collections of short stories, Irish writer ColmTóibín recently published his first book of poetry. His new collection, Vinegar Hill , examines a wide range of subjects: from mortality, religion, and the current political climate, to the power of poetry in life's most important moments. To celebrate Poetry Month, Tóibín read some of his poems to Scott Simon on Wee...

Today is Earth Day, a good occasion as any to reflect on the emergencies the planet currently faces. First, Harriet A. Washington, author of A Terrible Thing to Waste: Environmental Racism and Its Assault on the American Mind, talks to NPR's Sarah McCammon about the long-term damage environmental issues can have on brain development—particularly for people of color. Next, the author David Wallace-...

Percival Everett's page-turning new detective novel is at once gruesome and screamingly funny. A racial allegory rooted in southern history, the book features two big-city special detectives with the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation who are sent to investigate a small town crime. The murders are hideous in detail, the language is rough, there are racial epithets of all kinds, and somehow the po...

Nobody does love and heartbreak like an Ephron. And Delia Ephron knows a lot about it. Her new memoir is Left on Tenth , and it details the trauma of loss and the incredible hopefulness of falling in love. And as she tells NPR's Scott Simon in this Weekend Edition interview, in the end, love is all that really matters. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal da...

When you think of an epic, what comes to mind? The Iliad , the Odyssey , maybe Beowulf ? Well, author Honorée Fanonne Jeffers points out that epics are almost always about white men. She told former Morning Edition host Noel King that she didn't want to tell that story because that story has already been told...many times. So, Jeffers set out to write a different kind of epic about heroic Black wo...