NPR's Book of the Day

The bestselling author Louise Penny is a prolific writer of mysteries and thrillers — but for her latest book, she decided to bring a partner into the fold, a novice to the world of mystery-writing: former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Their book, State of Terror , brings readers into a world in which a president picks a former rival to be his secretary of state (sound familiar?) — and she m...

Back in June 2020, during a summer of protests for racial justice, the New Yorker republished 'Letter from a Region in my Mind," a seminal James Baldwin essay calling out the ignorance of liberal white Americans. In the following months, writer Jelani Cobb put together a collection of essays from the magazine that fit a similar theme: Black writers, including Toni Morrison and Ta-Nehisi Coates, wh...

If you visited South Nashville today, you might not suspect that, over a century ago, it was home to a zoo and amusement park called the Glendale Zoo. Among other attractions, the zoo had a popular attraction called "horse diving," in which a performer rode a horse off a tall platform into a body of water. In her book, When Two Feathers Fell From The Sky, Verble imagines the life of a young Cherok...

Our relationship to food goes far beyond its nutritional value. What we eat can help us tap into something deeper, whether it brings up treasured memories or allows us to escape our own lives for just a few bites. That duality is captured by two different books in today's episode; while Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner explores how cooking Korean food helped the author grieve her mom's death, G...

The Norwegian author Karl Ove Knausgaard gained an international reputation thanks to his breakout autobiographical series My Struggle -- but he actually made his literary debut in the world of fiction. Now, he's returned to that world with his novel The Morning Star , a dark tale of the uncanny events that unfold after a new star appears in the sky. Unlike his previous series, the book features m...

Former Trump press secretary Stephanie Grisham famously held no press briefings during her time in the White House — but now, she's ready to talk. Her memoir, I'll Take Your Questions Now, is the latest tell-all from a former Trump staffer — and Tamara Keith, from NPR's Politics Podcast, hit her with some tough questions about whether the book is simply an image rehab project. "Too many books have...

When Colin Powell died on October 18 at the age of 84 from COVID-19 complications, he left behind a long, decorated career in Washington and the U.S. Army. He spent much of his life in the military, eventually rising to the rank of four-star general, and went on to become the first Black Secretary of state and chairman of the Joint Chiefs. But, as he discussed in a 2012 interview with NPR's Robert...

Amor Towles' new book is quite the joyride — The Lincoln Highway follows four kids in a 1948 Studebaker who set out along the real-life Lincoln Highway, the first highway to cross the country. Two of them are trying to head for San Francisco to find their mother — the other two want to go the other way, looking for a promised inheritance. Needless to say, things don't go as planned. Towles talked...

After the protests last year, we heard the phrase "racial reckoning" a lot, as some groups of people struggled to catch up with what's just been reality for many others. This week we've got two books that might help you reckon with that reckoning, in two different ways: Traci Todd and illustrator Christian Robinson's bright and powerful picture book biography Nina: A Story of Nina Simone and poet...

In her memoir, Fiona Hill extends her riveting testimony from Donald Trump's first impeachment trial. And while she might not dish as much dirt as other Trump-era memoirists, the former senior National Security official writes movingly about Trump and about polarization and other threats to American democracy. She points to Russian history to suggest that distrust in government and political syste...

Percival Everett's page-turning new detective novel The Trees 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 some...

Since her childhood in 1970s San Francisco, critic and poet Maggie Nelson has been mulling the concept of freedom — particularly how we define, practice and experience it. She sat down with NPR's Ari Shapiro to talk about four areas in life — art, sex, addiction and climate change — and how we talk about freedom in regard to our collective wellbeing and individual rights. See pcm.adswizz.com for i...

Back in August, Myriam J.A. Chancy was preparing for the release of her novel What Storm, What Thunder when the news broke: a magnitude 7.2 earthquake had hit Haiti. It was a "chilling and bittersweet" moment, she says; her soon-to-be-published book revolved around the 2010 earthquake that devastated the country, and its aftermath. In this episode, she talks to NPR's Scott Simon about the eerie si...

Authors Joshua Prager and Leni Zumas each explore the real world implications of abortion politics, through fiction and non-fiction. First, in a conversation with Michel Martin, Prager talks through his book The Family Roe: An American Story, centered on the woman who was the baby at the center of the landmark Roe v. Wade trial. Then Leni Zumas and Scott Simon discuss Zumas' novel Red Clocks , set...

If these walls could talk... what might they say to the chairs? In Ruth Ozeki's novel The Book of Form and Emptiness , 13-year-old Benny Oh starts hearing things talk to him after the loss of his father. As he navigates his grief, it's his conversations with books that guide him through. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage...

You've likely heard the names of Ruby Bridges, Jackie Robinson and Thurgood Marshall — the first African Americans to desegregate public schools, baseball and the Supreme Court. But do you know the names of Kenny Washington, Woody Strode, Marion Motley or Bill Willis? Unless you're a football fan, you likely haven't. And that's what Keyshawn Johnson is trying to rectify in his book The Forgotten F...

Following the success of his previous novel All the Light We Cannot See , Anthony Doerr's latest book is an ambitious epic about the power and immortality of stories. He discusses it all with NPR's Scott Simon here. If you're in the market for a novel written by someone who genuinely loves books, this is the pick for you. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal...

It can be hard enough to answer the question, "what kind of music do you like?" But how about " why do you like it?" That's one of the many questions about the human brain and sound that neuroscientist Nina Kraus set out to answer in her book Of Sound Mind. In this interview with NPR's Ari Shapiro, she breaks down the science behind what our brains do when they process sound, and how it differs fo...

At first glance, journalist Dawn Turner's book Three Girls from Bronzeville: A Uniquely American Memoir of Race, Fate, and Sisterhood and detective novelist Walter Mosley's Down The River Unto The Sea don't have a ton in common. The former takes place in Chicago and focuses on the tough childhoods of Turner, her sister and her best friend; the latter takes readers to the streets of New York, where...

For decades, the author and scientist Giulio Boc­caletti has studied the substance that's come to define life as we know it: water. And in his book Water: A Biography , he traces the history of how humanity, regardless of continent or creed, has shaped entire civilizations around a resource that's both fickle and essential for life on earth. In this episode, All Things Considered host Ari Shapiro...

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 R...

Want to find a good read? Or just keep up with the books everyone's talking about? NPR's Book of the Day gives you today's very best storytelling in a snackable, searchable, pocket-sized podcast. Whether you're looking to engage with the ideas and issues of our times – or temporarily escape from them – we have an author who will speak to you, all genres, moods and writing styles included. Today's...