Books

Razor Girl by Carl Hiaasen (Emily Bogle/NPR)

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Arts

'Razor Girl' Is Carl Hiaasen Doing What He Does Best

8:00am September 08, 2016

by Michael Schaub

Gleefully obscene, violent and shockingly funny, Razor Girl follows an ex-cop turned restaurant inspector on the tail of a car-crash con artist, a kidnapped TV agent and a loud-mouthed reality star.

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Arts

Anna Dewdney, Author Of Beloved 'Llama Llama' Children's Books, Dies

5:40pm September 07, 2016

Anna Dewdney, author of a popular series of children's books that included Llama Llama Red Pajama and Llama Llama Mad at Mama died this week at age 50. She was beloved for her writing as well as her illustrations.

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'The Story Of A Brief Marriage' Provides Intimate Look At Sri Lanka's Civil War

4:39pm September 07, 2016

NPR's Ari Shapiro talks with Anuk Arudpragasam about his debut novel, The Story Of A Brief Marriage, which takes place over the course of a single day at a displaced persons camp during Sri Lanka's civil war.

'Sad And Absurd': The U.S.S.R.'s Disastrous Effort To Create A Jewish Homeland

2:00pm September 07, 2016

Russian-American journalist Masha Gessen discusses the Soviet effort, in 1929, to create an autonomous Jewish state in the country's far eastern region. Gessen is the author of Where The Jews Aren't.

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'Everfair' Looks Into Steampunk's Dark Heart

7:00am September 07, 2016

by Amal El-Mohtar

Nisi Shawl's new alternative history novel imagines a group of socialists and missionaries who found a new nation — Everfair — as a safe haven for those fleeing Belgian atrocities in the Congo.

Jonathan Safran Foer's new novel chronicles the dissolution of a marriage against a backdrop of global crisis.

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'Here I Am' Balances Domestic Strife And Global Crisis

4:35pm September 06, 2016

by NPR Staff

Jonathan Safran Foer is back with a mammoth new novel that explores the dissolution of a marriage, and larger questions: What kind of lives are we living, and how do we respond to the world around us?

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Here I Am by Jonathan Safran Foer (Emily Bogle/NPR)

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'Here I Am' Grapples With Weighty Matters ... And Weighty Paragraphs

1:22pm September 06, 2016

by Heller McAlpin

Jonathan Safran Foer returns with a door-stopper of a meditation on family, identity and Judaism. It's the story of a crumbling marriage set against the backdrop of a crisis in Israel.

Amor Towles likes to write about the past, but says he is not driven by historical research. He prefers instead to play in between what is real and what is imagined. His first novel was called Rules of Civility.

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Arts

Idea For 'Gentleman In Moscow' Came From Many Nights In Luxury Hotels

5:02am September 06, 2016

by Lynn Neary

During the 20 years he worked for an investment firm, Amor Towles spent a lot of time in fancy hotels. His new novel follows a Russian aristocrat sentenced to house arrest at the Metropol in Moscow.

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Frank Underwood of "House of Cards" epitomizes the Machiavellian idea of power. But researcher Dacher Keltner argues, that's not actually an effective way to gain influence.

The Perils of Power

12:00am September 06, 2016

by Maggie Penman

We've all heard the adage that "power corrupts," but psychologist Dacher Keltner at UC Berkeley has found evidence to prove it. His book is The Power Paradox: How We Gain and Lose Influence.

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Books

Our Language Has 'Interesting Little Wrinkles,' Linguist Says

5:40pm September 05, 2016

by NPR Staff

John McWhorter of Columbia University says the way we use words changes, like how "literally" can now mean "figuratively." That example, he says, is a contronym, a word with two opposite meanings.

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