NPR's Book of the Day

The former attorney general under former President Trump, William Barr, is out with a new memoir called One Damn Thing After Another . In it, he agrees with President Trump on many things: modern day culture wars and that the progressives are dividing the country. But Barr also gives his own version of the events of the Trump White House and disagrees with the former president about the "stolen el...

Our interviews today are both children's books and even though they are about wildly different topics, they both aim to make reading more accessible for kids. Nikole Hannah Jones, with the help of Renee Watson, has turned the 1619 Project into a picture book called Born On The Water . They told NPR their goal was "to say to young people - to young Black Americans, you belong here." Next, Adam Rubi...

Author Bernardine Evaristo wrote the Booker prize winning novel Girl, Woman, Other . But before she did, like way before, she was incredibly unsure of herself or how she - as someone with a Black father and white mother - fit into her mostly white town. Even still, Evaristo always knew she had something important to say. She lays out those early struggles and how she overcame them in her new memoi...

Author Tess Hadley's new novel opens with an affair, but that's not really what the book is about. Free Love is set in the 1960s just outside of London and it starts with a wealthy woman in her 40s, Phyllis, sharing a secret kiss with a much younger man who is not her husband (gasp). The kiss has unintended consequences and Phyllis has to figure out what she really wants out of life. Hadley told N...

There is an Icelandic word, sprakkar, that means outstanding women - and those women are at the heart of the book Secrets Of The Sprakkar: Iceland's Extraordinary Women And How They Are Changing The World . Iceland's first lady and author, Eliza Reid, interviewed women from all walks of life to find out what makes being a woman in Iceland so great. Reid told NPR's Leila Fadel that not everyone kno...

Back in 2013 author Anthony Marra wrote a book that is every bit as timely today. A Constellation Of Vital Phenomena takes place in Chechnya, a place very familiar with warring with Russia, in 2004. It's a story about the people - everyday, ordinary people - war and its aftermath impacts. Marra told NPR's Jacki Lyden that he wrote "a novel about people who are trying to transcend the hardships of...

Today we look at the power of the Chinese government. The first book, How I Survived A Chinese Reeducation Camp , is by Gulbahar Haitiwaji, a Uyghur woman who spent years in a detention camp. It's a stark account of human rights atrocities. Haitiwaji told NPR's Scott Simon she feels lucky because millions of people are still suffering. Next is an interview with Chinese businessman Desmond Shum abo...

Novelist David Wright Falade learned about the life of Richard Etheridge in the 90s and has been enthralled by him ever since. Born into slavery in North Carolina, he became a sergeant of an all-Black brigade when the Civil War broke out. Black Cloud Rising is a fictionalized version of these events; Etheridge goes back down to North Carolina to free enslaved people and fight guerillas. Falade tol...

Russian President Vladimir Putin has framed his recent invasion of Ukraine as a "de-nazification" of the country. This is not a new move by Putin. In fact, he used this same rhetoric to attack the Ukranian protesters during the 2014 annexation of the Crimean Peninsula. Back in 2014 historian Timothy Snyder talked to NPR's Robert Siegel about fascism in Ukraine and the rise of Stalinism in Russia....

Author Charmaine Wilkerson's new novel, Black Cake , is all about identity; who we are and how we fit into this world. Estranged siblings, Benny and Byron are left a recording by their late mother after she dies. The recording is full of secrets about their family that force Benny and Byron to reevaluate everything about their lives. Wilkerson told NPR's Kelsey Snell that even though Benny and Byr...

The Russian invasion into Ukraine is a world-altering event that has people fearful. Historically, few leaders have navigated their country through these things like Winston Churchill, the subject of Erik Larson's book The Splendid and the Vile . It focuses on the year when Churchill became prime minister of the UK just before the German blitz. Larson told NPR's Steve Inskeep that he was incredibl...

In interviews with the authors of The Black Agenda and Solitary , the issue of criminal justice reform is central. First, writer Anna Gifty Opoku-Agyeman talks about an essay collection from Black writers that tackles issues the U.S. faces today – that stem from racism and racist policies. She told NPR's Leila Fadel the book is arguing for the humanity of Black people. The second interview is with...

Bernardine Evaristo didn't think there were enough books being published about Black British women, so she wrote one herself. Girl, Woman, Other looks at the lives of many different British women, mostly Black women, from 19 to 93 years old. Some of their stories intertwine while others stay separate. Evaristo told NPR's Scott Simon that she wanted "to show the heterogeneity of who we are in this...

Noah Hawley is a world builder. He created the TV shows Fargo and Legion , so he is no stranger to getting an audience immersed in his worlds. His new novel Anthem is no different. But it doesn't take that much imagination, despite the fantasy creatures: This world is remarkably similar to ours. Hawley was interested in looking at the state of the world that is getting passed down to future genera...

Author Marlon James is following up Black Leopard, Red Wolf with a new fantasy novel Moon Witch, Spider King . It tells the same story as Black Leopard, Red Wolf but this time it's from the perspective of the character Sogolon as she hunts for a missing child. James is inviting the reader to question his narratives by telling the story twice but from different points of view. He told NPR's Michel...

Social science writer Arthur Brooks has figured out how you, yes you, can be happy later in life. He details it all in his new book, From Strength to Strength , but the gist of it is...maybe relax a little. Brooks argues that for people who work too hard to have it all it can be very upsetting when that part of their life is over. The good news is you can start working on your future happiness now...

Both interviews today will transport you into the exciting world of classical music. No, really! The first is with Brendan Slocumb, whose new book, The Violin Conspiracy , is a mystery surrounding a musician trying to recover his stolen violin. It's also about how hard it is to be a Black classical musician, Slocumb told NPR's Asma Khalid. The second is Jessica Chiccehitto Hindman's conversation w...

Author Maeve Higgins starts her new book, Tell Everyone on This Train I Love Them , by saying she hopes the pandemic doesn't impart any lessons. This kind of dark humor persists throughout Higgins' book, which is a reflection on America and its many flaws. But, as an immigrant, she can see this country in a way others cannot — with a fresh pair of perhaps more forgiving eyes. Higgins told NPR's Ta...

Patriarch Leo Chao is murdered at his restaurant at the beginning of Lan Samantha Chang's new novel The Family Chao . Eventually family secrets and bitterness reveal themselves — much like a Dostoyevsky novel, from whom Chao took a lot of inspiration. But NPR's Scott Simon points out that even though this novel is about a murder, it's quite funny. Chang told Simon that she just enjoyed writing it...

Author Tara Westover grew up in an extreme survivalist family in Idaho. She and her siblings had no formal education, but she taught herself algebra, aced the entrance exam for BYU and got in. It was the start of her way out from under an often abusive family situation. Westover wrote about her experiences and what it was like for her to totally change her worldview in her memoir, Educated . Westo...

In honor of Valentine's Day, we are revisiting a conversation with our very own romance expert, Linda Holmes. Her novel Evvie Drake Starts Over is about a woman who is getting ready to leave her husband when she gets a surprising call – he is dead. She finds herself alone until former major league pitcher Dean Tenney, who can't throw a baseball anymore, hides from the media stress in her guest bed...

As part of Black History Month, Book of the Day brings you an interview with author Isabel Wilkerson. She followed her book about The Great Migration, The Warmth of Other Suns , with another that looks at why it happened. Caste argues that caste and not racism is actually what Black people were fleeing when they left the Jim Crow South. Wilkerson told Throughline 's Ramtin Arablouei and Rund Abdel...

During Black History month, Book of the Day is bringing you some interviews from the archives, including this one with author Octavia Butler. Butler wrote many sci-fi classics, like the Parable series and Kindred , so she's accustomed to imagining different worlds. NPR's Scott Simon asked her back in 2001 to imagine a world without racism. Butler believed that in racism's place we would have to ha...

To recognize Black History Month, Book of the Day is digging into the archives to bring you some important interviews. In 1977, author Alex Haley told NPR he didn't want to put the main character of Roots , Kunta Kinte, on a slave ship. To prepare for writing that portion of the novel, Haley flew to Africa and caught a voyage home on a cargo ship — sneaking down into the hold after dinner. In the...

As part of Black History Month, we are running interviews from our archives. The Color Purple is about the survival of Black women in a male-dominated world. Author Alice Walker said that she just wrote what happens in the real world. At its core, this is a story of women loving and helping other women. Walker told NPR's Faith Fancher that "one of the reasons I wanted to have strong, beautiful, wo...