Books

Books
Arts

The Zoo Is A Terrifying Place In 'Fierce Kingdom'

2:00pm July 27, 2017

by Lizzie Skurnick

Gin Phillips' new novel — which follows a young mother trying to keep her child safe during a mass shooting at a zoo — explores the way violence can be a safe abstraction for kids, or cruelly real.

Now Here's Something We Hope You'll Really Like: An appreciation of the late June Foray, voice of Rocky the Flying Squirrel and many others, shown here arriving at an Oscars reception in 2013.

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Arts

Whatever The Character, June Foray's Voice Was Warmly Familiar

1:00pm July 27, 2017

by Glen Weldon

Foray voiced a wide variety of animated characters, and she brought the same genial humor and warmth to them all — except one.

Books

Getting Kids Interested In Poetry

7:45am July 27, 2017

Poet and educator Kwame Alexander stops by to chat about poetry with NPR's Rachel Martin. He shares some ideas for poems to read with kids and tips for getting kids to write some of their own.

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Killing Is My Business: A Novel, by Adam Christopher

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3 Supernatural Noir Tales That Reflect The Inhuman Condition

7:00am July 27, 2017

by Jason Heller

Some great noir fiction has been written about Los Angeles, but what happens when a different genre bleeds through? We've got three tales of murder, magic and robot detectives to cool your summer.

NY Public Library Re-Opens Reading Room After 2 Years

Books

Looking To Libraries

2:56pm July 26, 2017

Rumors of the death of libraries have been greatly exaggerated.

Cover detail from Chester B. Himes, by Lawrence P. Jackson.

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Arts

New Chester Himes Biography Reveals A Life As Wild As Any Detective Story

1:45pm July 26, 2017

by Maureen Corrigan

Lawrence P. Jackson's biography tracks the writer's course from prison to published novelist. Critic Maureen Corrigan says Himes' life story is well worth reading.

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Looking Back At The Most Powerful Earthquake Ever To Strike North America

1:45pm July 26, 2017

Science writer Henry Fountain says the deadly quake that shook Alaska in 1964 was so loud some thought it was the beginning of World War III. His new book is The Great Quake.

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'Strange Practice:' The Doctor Is In

11:08am July 26, 2017

by Jason Sheehan

In Strange Practice, Vivian Shaw kicks off a new series about Dr. Greta Helsing, descendant of the famous Professor Abraham Van Helsing and general practitioner to the ghouls and ghasts of London.

An 1894 engraving depicts chapter 18 of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice.

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The Enduring Legacy Of Jane Austen's 'Truth Universally Acknowledged'

4:52pm July 25, 2017

by Geoff Nunberg

Linguist Geoff Nunberg describes the opening sentence to Pride and Prejudice as a "masterpiece of indirection" that is frequently repurposed, but whose irony is never matched.

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Arts

'The World Broke In Two': Four Writers, One Transformational Year

2:00pm July 25, 2017

by Glen Weldon

Using excerpts from letters and diaries, historian and critic Bill Goldstein follows writers Virginia Woolf, E. M. Forster, D. H. Lawrence and T. S. Eliot through the tumultuous literary year of 1922.