Books

A view of Dan Barber's Stone Barns Center field and barns in Pocantico Hills, N.Y.

Books
Arts

'Third Plate' Reimagines Farm-To-Table Eating To Nourish The Land

5:56pm May 23, 2014

by NPR Staff

Renee Montagne talks to Dan Barber about his new book The Third Plate: Field Notes on the Future of Food. Barber advocates eating a wider variety of foods that better support the land.

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Arts

A Second Posthumous Collection From Rock Critic Ellen Willis

3:54pm May 22, 2014

by Maureen Corrigan

The Essential Ellen Willis focuses on the writer's explicitly feminist culture criticism. It was edited by Willis' daughter, who published an earlier collection of her mother's essays in 2011.

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40 Years After Watergate, A Look Back At Nixon's Downfall

1:43pm May 22, 2014

by NPR Staff

Political journalist Elizabeth Drew chronicled the events of 1974 in her recently reissued Washington Journal. She tells NPR's Robert Siegel that she sees "a certain nobility" in Nixon's resilience.

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How The Koch Brothers Remade America's Political Landscape

5:08pm May 21, 2014

Charles and David Koch have spent hundreds of millions of dollars trying to bring their libertarian views into the mainstream. In a new book, Daniel Schulman looks at the roots of their ideology.

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German troops march towards Paris' Arc de Triomphe in 1943.

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'Chameleon' Has Cabaret, Spies And A Plot Fit For Lifetime

4:20pm May 21, 2014

by Maureen Corrigan

Francine Prose's latest novel was inspired by a 1932 photo of two lesbians, one of whom was in the Gestapo. Critic Maureen Corrigan says it's an ingenious excursion into the Parisian demimonde.

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Edward St. Aubyn's 2006 novel Mother's Milk was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize.

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In Life And Fiction, Edward St. Aubyn Sheds The Weight Of His Past

6:39pm May 20, 2014

The writer is best known for his semi-autobiographical novels about an Englishman from a posh but monstrous family. St. Aubyn's new book marks a departure.

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Taxis speed past the headquarters of the New York Times.

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A 'New York Times' Shake-Up, But Not The One You're Thinking Of

11:51am May 19, 2014

by Kevin Roose

The New York Times made news this week when it announced Jill Abramson's departure. For a deeper understanding of the paper's history, author Kevin Roose recommends Hard News by Seth Mnookin.

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Mark Twain's Famous Outcasts Float Through Three Centuries

11:29am May 17, 2014

Huck Finn and his friend Jim float down the Mississippi through the Jim Crow South and Hurricane Katrina in a new book called The Boy in His Winter. NPR's Scott Simon talks with author Norman Lock.

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'Wynne's War,' A Modern Take On The Classic 'Mideastern'

11:29am May 17, 2014

Wynne's War is part western, part war novel. NPR's Scott Simon talks with author Aaron Gwyn about the book that follows a U.S. Special Forces unit on horseback through Afghanistan.

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Arts

In Mona Simpson's 'Casebook,' A Holden Caulfield For Our Time

12:18pm May 16, 2014

by Julia Keller

The teenage protagonist in Simpson's novel spies on his parents and learns their secrets. It's a haunting cross between Harriet the Spy and The Catcher in the Rye.

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