'The Witness Wore Red': A Polygamist's Wife Finds A New Life
Rebecca Musser was raised in an extremist, polygamist church. She tells the harrowing story of her childhood, her first marriage, and her escape in her autobiography.
Books
McMillan 'Asks' Readers To Empathize With A Family's Problems
Terry McMillan, the best-selling author of How Stella Got Her Groove Back, tells NPR's Scott Simon that she writes because she wishes she were a magician. She shows off her tricks in Who Asked You?, a novel with many narrators — including a woman named BJ and her husband, children and grandkids.
Art Spiegelman Reflects On 60 Years Of Pen And Ink
Art Spiegelman's new book, Co-Mix: A Retrospective of Comics, Graphics, and Scraps, collects comics from a six-decade career, from his early, self-published works to his famous New Yorker covers. Spiegelman tells NPR's Scott Simon he knew in third grade that he wanted to be a cartoonist.
In These 'Gardens,' The Tree Rings Of The Radical Left
Jonathan Lethem's Dissident Gardens sketches a history of the American left that is at once intimate and expansive. Out of the lives of a few conflicted characters, reviewer Mohsin Hamid explains, the book lends depth and emotion to events that affected millions.
Tired Of Inequality? One Economist Says It'll Only Get Worse
In his new book, Average Is Over, Tyler Cowen predicts that America will become a new, more creative meritocracy. Though he believes a rise in income inequality is inevitable, he hopes that "happiness inequality isn't going up in the same way."
An Alternate Universe Delights In Complex, Perplexing 'Duplex'
Books about quantum mechanics can be pretty dry stuff. But when a novelist conjures up multiple worlds, the results can be spellbinding, even when it's no easy read. Such is the case with Duplex, the latest book from Kathryn Davis. Reviewer Rosecrans Baldwin, says this one's worth the effort.
Woodrow Wilson Brought New Executive Style To The White House
No. 28 was the first president to team up with America's legislative branch, and he used a groundbreaking moral argument to get the U.S. involved in World War I. A. Scott Berg's new book, Wilson, fills in missing pieces of the president's life.
During Katrina, 'Memorial' Doctors Chose Who Lived, Who Died
With waters rising and their hospital on the verge of losing power, Memorial Medical Center staff were faced with an ethical question: Who to save first? Sheri Fink reconstructs their decisions — from hastening patients' deaths to evacuating the sickest last — in Five Days at Memorial.
For Novelist Jonathan Lethem, Radicalism Runs In The Family
His new book, Dissident Gardens, follows three generations of an activist family, from Rose, a secular Jew and communist, to Sergius, her commune-raised grandson. The book is fiction, but its characters were inspired by Lethem's own family story.
'Five Days' Of Ambiguous Morality At Katrina-Hit Hospital
Sheri Fink's Five Days At Memorial, describes the horrific conditions at a New Orleans hospital shortly after Hurricane Katrina. Facing floodwaters and corporate mismanagement, some staffers euthanized sick patients. Fink's judgment of those actions is admirably — and frustratingly — nuanced.