Books

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Arts

Overflowing 'Year Abroad' Is A Travelogue, A Coming-Of-Age Tale And A Mafia Thriller

4:36pm February 03, 2021

by Ari Shapiro

Chang-Rae Lee's new novel — about a college kid from New Jersey who ends up following a Chinese immigrant entrepreneur on a business trip — is part, travelogue, coming-of-age tale and thriller.

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The Copenhagen Trilogy, by Tove Ditlevsen

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New Translation Shares The Voice Of A Poet Who Wrote As Intensely As She Lived

11:31am February 03, 2021

by John Powers

Danish poet Tove Ditlevsen took her own life in 1976. A newly translated version of her three-part memoir traces the sometimes amusing, sometimes painful turns of her unconventional life.

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Arts

Legendary Director Mike Nichols Is As Brilliant As He Is Enigmatic In New Biography

6:26am February 03, 2021

by Michael Schaub

In Mike Nichols: A Life, author Mark Harris presents an engrossing tale of the auteur as an outsider from the start who grew to find much success in Hollywood, despite some slumps.

Katherine Heigl and Sarah Chalke play Tully and Kate, two friends who spend decades supporting each other in Firefly Lane.

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'Firefly Lane' Is A Regrettably Shapeless Friendship Story

5:00am February 03, 2021

by Linda Holmes

The Netflix adaptation of Kristin Hannah's novel, starring Katherine Heigl and Sarah Chalke, doesn't follow the novel's narrative shape, but it has trouble finding one of its own.

Books

Author Brandon Hobson On His New Novel 'The Removed'

6:56pm February 02, 2021

NPR's Ailsa Chang speaks with Brandon Hobson about his new book The Removed and the line between the past and the present.

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The author's grandparents, Russell and Mary Shorto, socialize at Club Harlem in Atlantic City, N.J., in the mid-1950s.

Author Digs Into Family's 'Smalltime' Mob Operation, Finds Family Secrets

4:35pm February 02, 2021

by Dave Davies

Russell Shorto's grandfather was a mob boss in the industrial town of Johnstown, Pa. Shorto writes about the family havoc that resulted from his grandfather's operation in his new memoir, Smalltime.

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Arts

It's The Public Radio Romance! Questions For Rachel Solomon, Author Of 'The Ex Talk'

10:00am February 02, 2021

by Petra Mayer

We here at NPR have a proprietary interest in the new novel from former KUOW producer Rachel Lynn Solomon: It's a sparky enemies-to-lovers romance set at a public radio station.

Halfway Home: Race, Punishment, and the Afterlife of Mass Incarceration, by Reuben Jonathan Miller

'Halfway Home' Makes Case That The Formerly Incarcerated Are Never Truly Free

5:00am February 02, 2021

by Ericka Taylor

Sociologist, criminologist, and former jail chaplain Reuben Jonathan Miller says "no other marginalized group ... experience[s] [the] profound level of legal exclusion" that those once imprisoned do.

Books

Michelle Duster Reflects On Life Of Great Grandmother Ida B. Wells In New Biography

4:28pm February 01, 2021

NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks with Michelle Duster about her new biography of her great grandmother, Ida B. Wells, Ida B. the Queen: The Extraordinary Life and Legacy of Ida B. Wells.

Ben Harper And Mom Ellen Reflect On A Lifetime Immersed In A Folk Music 'Wonderland'

1:30pm February 01, 2021

by Terry Gross

Ellen and Ben Harper both grew up in the Folk Music Center in Claremont Calif., which Ellen's parents founded in 1958. They join Fresh Air to discuss Ellen's new memoir, Always a Song.

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