Books

Books
Arts

For Novelist Jonathan Lethem, Radicalism Runs In The Family

3:01pm September 09, 2013

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.

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An aerial view of Memorial Medical Center surrounded by floodwaters on Sept. 9, 2005.

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'Five Days' Of Ambiguous Morality At Katrina-Hit Hospital

6:26pm September 08, 2013

by Susan Jane Gilman

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.

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'Be Mine': Love And Identity Tangled In Tehran

5:33pm September 07, 2013

by NPR Staff

In her debut novel, Iranian-American Sara Farizan tells the story of two teenage girls, secretly in love. Sahar faces a crisis when she discovers Nasrin is engaged, and considers gender-reassignment surgery as a way for them to stay together. Farizan speaks with NPR's Jacki Lyden about the book and her own struggle with her sexual orientation.

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Jesse Walker is a senior editor at Reason magazine.

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Suspicious? In 'United States Of Paranoia,' It's Not Just You

1:01pm September 07, 2013

by NPR Staff

Author Jesse Walker argues that believing in shadowy cabals and ominous secrets isn't just for people on the margins — it's as American as apple pie. He says that our nation's paranoia stretches back to the colonial era, and that some conspiracy theories are believed by a majority of Americans.

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Daniel Woodrell's novel Winter's Bone -- a dark family saga set in the Ozarks — was adapted into a film in 2010. Woodrell returned to his hometown of West Plains, Mo., about 20 years ago and has been writing there ever since.

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'Winter's Bone' Author Revisits A Tragedy In His Ozarks Hometown

6:42pm September 05, 2013

by Lynn Neary

For nearly a century, Daniel Woodrell's hometown of West Plains, Mo., has been haunted by a dance-hall explosion that killed dozens of the town's young people in 1928. Woodrell explores the disaster — and his Ozarks roots — in his new novel The Maid's Version.

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Books

Tina Brown: Women Are Terrifyingly Vulnerable In Many Places

3:48pm September 05, 2013

For our regular feature "Word of Mouth," Renee Montagne talks with Tina Brown, editor-in-chief of The Daily Beast and founder of the annual Women in the World summit. She has three must-reads on women whose lives were changed by kidnapping and captivity.

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The main character of Alice McDermott's Someone grew up in 1920s and '30s New York.

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From McDermott, An Extraordinary Story Of An Ordinary 'Someone'

3:27pm September 04, 2013

by Maureen Corrigan

Alice McDermott's characters can often be described as average, and Marie, the heroine of her latest novel, is no exception. But critic Maureen Corrigan says the power of McDermott's writing is that she can make even Marie's run-of-the-mill life one for the record books.

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Zelda Sayre and F. Scott Fitzgerald pose for a photo at the Sayre home in Montgomery, Ala., in 1919, the year before they married.

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For F. Scott And Zelda Fitzgerald, A Dark Chapter In Asheville, N.C.

3:30pm September 03, 2013

by Susan Stamberg

The Golden 1920s couple didn't fare as well in the 1930s, and the North Carolina mountain town was host to a particularly sad time. NPR's Susan Stamberg discovered a little-known story of the Jazz Age darlings and their devastating connections to Asheville.

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American composer Irving Berlin sings his song "God Bless America" in front of Boy Scouts troop members and spectators gathered at a tent in Monticello, New York in 1940. Instead of collecting royalties from "God Bless America," Berlin created a fund that

From Peace To Patriotism: The Shifting Identity Of 'God Bless America'

10:47am September 03, 2013

by NPR Staff

In the new book God Bless America: The Surprising History of an Iconic Song, author Sheryl Kaskowitz explores the lyrical evolution of Irving Berlin's enduring song and explains how its early popularity reflected the anxiety of the pre-war period and sparked a surprising anti-Semitic and xenophobic backlash.

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Shacochis Spans Generations In 'The Woman Who Lost Her Soul'

10:06am September 01, 2013

by NPR Staff

In his new book, The Woman Who Lost Her Soul, Bob Shacochis returns to Haiti, but also takes the reader across continents and generations. The 700-page book has been compared to the work of Joseph Conrad, Graham Greene and Norman Mailer.

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