Books

Data gleaned from e-readers gives writers a new kind of feedback to take into consideration — or ignore.

Books
Arts

E-Readers Track How We Read, But Is The Data Useful To Authors?

6:23pm January 28, 2013

by Lynn Neary

Data is being collected about your reading habits — what kind of books you read, whether or not you finish them. Publishers say the information could improve how books are written, but some novelists are skeptical.

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Visitors take in a re-created scene at the massacre museum at Vietnam's My Lai village. Researcher Nick Turse says atrocities of all kinds were more common in the Vietnam War than most Americans believe.

'Anything That Moves': Civilians And The Vietnam War

4:06pm January 28, 2013

In a new book, Nick Turse says the pressure on U.S. forces to produce a body count during the Vietnam War led to mass civilian deaths. "The idea," he says, "was that the Vietnamese, they weren't really people."

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An illustration shows heretics being tortured and nailed to wooden posts during the first Inquisition.

Books
Arts

The Inquisition: A Model For Modern Interrogators

1:41pm January 28, 2013

The Inquisition revolutionized record-keeping and surveillance techniques that are still used today, says Cullen Murphy. His book God's Jury draws parallels between some of the interrogation techniques used in previous centuries with the ones used today.

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The Polar Express won the Caldecott Medal in 1986, and was turned into an animated movie with Tom Hanks in 2004.

Books
Arts

A Colorful Anniversary: The Caldecott Medal Turns 75

10:11am January 28, 2013

by Lynn Neary

The award for the most distinguished children's picture book of the year is announced Monday. The first winner, in 1938, was a book of illustrated animals from the Bible, but the medal has also gone to books like Madeline's Rescue and Where the Wild Things Are.

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Books
Arts

'Manifest Injustice': A 40-Year Fight For Freedom

6:34pm January 27, 2013

by NPR Staff

Bill Macumber, a respected member of his Arizona community, was convicted of a grisly 1962 double murder. Late last year, however, he was released from prison. A new book tells the story of a flawed investigation and legal process that cost Macumber 38 years of freedom.

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The Church of Scientology building in Los Angeles on Sunset Boulevard on Aug. 28, 2011.

'Going Clear': A New Book Delves Into Scientology

6:50am January 27, 2013

Lawrence Wright's Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood and the Prison of Belief looks at the world of the controversial church and the life of its founder, L. Ron Hubbard, who died in 1986.

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Ship It Holla Ballas by Jonathan Grotenstein and Storms Reback.

Books
Arts

Ship Those (Virtual) Chips: The Rise And Fall Of Online Poker's Youngest Crew

6:59pm January 26, 2013

by NPR Staff

In the early 2000s, the get-rich-quick scheme of choice for young college dropouts was online poker. In his new book Ship It Holla Ballas, Jonathan Grotenstein follows two young players as they rake in the dough.

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Books
Arts

Dave Barry's 'Insane' Miami Mixes Refugees, Gangsters, Escorts And A Burmese Python

5:36pm January 26, 2013

by NPR Staff

In Dave Barry's latest novel, a bachelor dinner goes off the rails, entangling the groom to be with a colorful cast of characters — everyone from Russian mobsters to Haitian refugees to the fourth-place finisher in the Miss Hot Amateur Bod contest. Oh, and an albino Burmese python.

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The Book Club Catches 'The Andromeda Strain'

1:08pm January 25, 2013

This month, the book club discusses Michael Crichton's 1969 best-selling science fiction thriller The Andromeda Strain. Writer Richard Preston joins the club to talk about Crichton's writing style, and what it was like to work on Crichton's unfinished final manuscript, Micro.

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Longtime CIA agent and counterintelligence agent Jeanne Vertefeuille, pictured at center, was instrumental in uncovering undercover agents, or moles, within the organization in the 1980s and '90s.

Books
Arts

Tina Brown's Must-Reads: Hidden Lives

10:06am January 22, 2013

by NPR Staff

The Newsweek editor returns with a list of new reads about people with surprising lives — a CIA investigator, a successful businesswoman who started life as a child soldier, and a private-equity pioneer whose domineering personality drove his loved ones away.

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