How Washington's Odd Couple Transformed Welfare
The new book The Professor and the President looks back at how Democratic Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan pushed the Nixon White House to embrace a relatively liberal plan.
Books
Millennia Of History, Beautifully Illustrated 'Here' In One Room
Richard McGuire's Here started small — as an underground magazine cartoon 25 years ago. But it's grown to an epoch-spanning narrative that captures all the bits of history happening in one room.
Author Of 'Bridge To Terabithia': Messages Are Poison To Fiction
Katherine Paterson describes the inspiration behind her best-known children's book, as well as tales from her childhood in China and missionary work in Japan, in her new memoir, Stories of My Life.
Is Privacy Protection 'More Awesome Than Money'?
Jim Dwyer's new book chronicles the life of Diaspora, a feisty, nonprofit social network dedicated to safeguarding personal privacy.
At 86, Poet Donald Hall Writes On, But Leaves Verse Behind
The former U.S. poet laureate says he can't write poetry any more, but still has some prose in him. In a new book, Essays After Eighty, he considers his art, his beard and his experience growing old.
Journalist Documents The Many 'Trials Of Oscar Pistorius'
Oscar Pistorius stunned the world when he ran on prosthetic legs in the 2012 Olympics, then shot his girlfriend dead months later. NPR's Scott Simon asks John Carlin about his new book on the athlete.
First-Generation 'Boston Girl' Becomes Career Woman In Diamant's Latest
Anita Diamant — who also authored The Red Tent — tells the story of Addie Baum in her latest novel. Baum is a Jewish girl, born in 1900 to immigrant parents in Boston's North End.
Playful And Serious? 'How To Be' Is Both
Ali Smith's new How To Be Both combines inventive structural trickery and warm, sardonic writing in in parallel tales of a bereaved modern teenager and an Italian renaissance fresco painter.
After The California Downpour, 'The Drought' Offers Some Dry Reading
It rained in California this week. That might not sound like news, but the state is experiencing a record-setting drought. Jason Heller turns to science fiction to reflect on the strange weather.
NPR Bestsellers: Week Of December 4, 2014
The lists are compiled from weekly surveys of close to 500 independent bookstores nationwide.