Books

Books
Arts

'Broken Ground' Balances Location, Character And Props In Perfect Proportion

10:00am December 06, 2018

by Bethanne Patrick

Prolific crime writer Val McDermid's latest catches up with plainspoken cold-case detective Karen Pirie as she deals with personal troubles, machinations at work and a mystery going back decades.

Books
Arts

Surrealism Meets Sci-Fi In 'Parallel Lives'

7:00am December 06, 2018

by Etelka Lehoczky

Olivier Schrauwen's new graphic novel is cold and rejecting, giddy and uncontrolled, all at the same time. It's semi-autobiographical and loosely sci-fi, set in an unsettlingly minimalist future.

Click here to browse more than 300 recommended titles in NPR's 2018 Book Concierge.

Books
Arts

Lynn Neary's Reading Recommendations For The Book Lovers On Your List

5:11am December 06, 2018

Ahead of the holidays, Neary offers some literary gift ideas — including a novel about a teenage spy, a Pulitzer Prize winner, and a cookbook just for kids.

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Books
Arts

Novelist And 'Book Matchmaker' Tayari Jones Shares Her Favorite Books Of 2018

5:58pm December 05, 2018

by Ailsa Chang

Ahead of the holidays this year, All Things Considered is inviting writers to talk about the books they'll be gifting to friends and family. Jones, author of An American Marriage, shares her list.

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Books
Arts

'All That Heaven Allows' Examines Rock Hudson's Life As A Closeted Leading Man

1:24pm December 05, 2018

by Terry Gross

Hudson lived a double life as a Hollywood heartthrob and a closeted gay man. Biographer Mark Griffin says Hudson's death from AIDS in 1985 was a turning point in public awareness of the epidemic.

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Harvard University's Bruce Freeman tries to run around a teammate and a Yale player and into the end zone after catching a pass during the final 42 seconds of The Game against Yale University at Harvard Stadium in Boston on Nov. 23, 1968.

Key 1968 Harvard-Yale Battle Sets Scene For 'The Game' — And Football's Future

12:05pm December 05, 2018

by Michael Schaub

Author George Howe Colt's choice to delve into the lives of the players and coaches in his new book, as well as the turbulent year itself, makes his writing about the actual game pay off beautifully.

Books
Arts

Complicated, Challenging 'Revolution Sunday' Mixes Prose And Poetry

7:00am December 05, 2018

by Lily Meyer

Cuban writer Wendy Guerra has lived under surveillance in her home country, and she works that experience into her intense new novel about a young poet in Havana whose success causes trouble.

Swinging on a Star, written by jazz and film critic Gary Giddins, is out now.

New Biography Chronicles Bing Crosby's Most Beloved Years

5:06pm December 04, 2018

by Tom Vitale

Crosby set the mold for the multimedia star: on radio, on the big screen and on record. The 1940s was the period when his star shone brightest and Swinging on a Star by Gary Giddins tells that story.

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Books
Arts

Brutally Intelligent 'Milkman' Depicts Lives Cramped By Fear

3:19pm December 04, 2018

by Annalisa Quinn

Anna Burns' new novel — which won the Man Booker prize — follows a never-named young woman who's being harassed by a powerful paramilitary figure during Ireland's Troubles.

Books

Extreme Ideologies Clash In 'North Of Dawn'

3:19pm December 04, 2018

by Steve Inskeep

Author Nuruddin Farah writes about immigration and radicalization in his latest novel North of Dawn, which follows a Somali living in exile in Norway whose son chooses a dangerously extreme path.

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