Books

In the Name of the Family by Sarah Dunant

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Arts

'In The Name Of The Family' Probes The Lives Of An Infamous Clan

7:00am March 04, 2017

by Jean Zimmerman

Sarah Dunant's latest novel follows one of history's most notorious families — the Borgias. But it's the small, domestic details, not the bigger picture, that captivate.

Writing Past The White Gaze As A Black Author

6:01am March 04, 2017

by LJ Alonge

"I wanted my characters to be respectable. I wanted them to somehow escape the judgement they'd get for just being, the same kind of judgement I've gotten for just being..."

Chimamanda Adichie's novels include Americanah and Half of a Yellow Sun. The author is pictured here at NPR in February 2017.

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How Do You Raise A Feminist Daughter? Chimamanda Adichie Has 15 Suggestions

6:55pm March 03, 2017

by Audie Cornish

Adichie's new book began as a letter to a childhood friend (and new mother) who had asked for some advice. It's called Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions.

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Sanity Is Slowly Lost In 'Spaceman Of Bohemia'

7:00am March 03, 2017

by Jason Heller

It's 2018 and a mysterious cloud has appeared between Earth and Venus. A Czech astrophysicist is sent to investigate. The only problem? Hanging on to his sense of reality while alone in space.

Maj. Mary Jennings Hegar served three tours in Afghanistan. She now lives in Austin, Texas, and works as an executive coach and consultant.

A Purple Heart Warrior Takes Aim At Military Inequality In 'Shoot Like A Girl'

2:57pm March 02, 2017

Maj. Mary Jennings Hegar is part of a lawsuit that argues excluding women from combat is unconstitutional. She says the lawsuit isn't about women's rights – it's about military effectiveness.

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Tyler Cowen argues, in his new book The Complacent Class, that Americans are in a period of stagnation because we are doing less and less of what made us successful in the past: embracing change, moving to different parts of the country and associating wi

America's 'Complacent Class': How Self-Segregation Is Leading To Stagnation

1:15pm March 02, 2017

by Heidi Glenn

Economist and author Tyler Cowen worries that Americans' desire to keep changing has gone away. "The forward march of progress," he says, "is not the main story today."

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'High Noon' Takes Aim At The Hollywood Blacklist

12:00pm March 02, 2017

by Genevieve Valentine

Glenn Frankel's new book about the making of the classic Western sets its tumultuous production against the backdrop of the Hollywood "Red Scare," drawing parallels between celluloid and reality.

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Arts

A Fatal Hit-And-Run Leads To A Collision Of Cultures In 'Waking Lions'

5:07pm March 01, 2017

by Maureen Corrigan

A doctor is forced into secret medical service in Ayelet Gundar-Goshen's new novel. Maureen Corrigan calls it "a psychological suspense tale mashed with a social novel about the refugee crisis."

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Unemployed, Living In A Caravan — And Now, Winner Of A $165,000 Literary Prize

3:10pm March 01, 2017

by Colin Dwyer

Ali Cobby Eckermann, an Australian indigenous poet forcibly taken from her family as a child, discovered without warning last week she had just won one of the richest literary prizes in the world.

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Escaping A World On Fire In 'Exit West'

7:00am March 01, 2017

by Michael Schaub

Mohsin Hamid's new novel imagines a country, never specified, swollen with refugees from an ongoing conflict — and a series of mysterious doors that appear, offering escape, but also displacement.