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Wisdom From YA Authors On Leaving Home: Veronica Roth

8:41am August 20, 2016

Veronica Roth is the best-selling author of "Divergent." For our "Next Chapter" series, she talks about a relationship that consumed her life and how she finally left it behind.

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In The Midst Of Future Calamity, A Different Kind Of Ark: The London Zoo

8:24am August 20, 2016

by NPR Staff

In Bill Broun's dystopian Night of the Animals, zoo-bound creatures ask the main character to let them out. "It's a kind of fulcrum between the old world and a kind of liberating cataclysm," he says.

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In 'Ghost Talkers,' The Spies Are Actual Spooks

7:00am August 20, 2016

by Jason Sheehan

Mary Robinette Kowal's new book imagines a version of World War I where mediums serve in the British Army, and newly dead soldiers are vital sources of information about what's happening at the front.

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Novelist's 'Disgruntled' Heroine Is Drawn From Her Own Childhood

1:26pm August 19, 2016

Asali Solomon's novel is about a girl growing up in West Philadelphia whose parents were black nationalists. "My parents taught us to revere Africa," she says. Originally broadcast Feb. 5, 2015.

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Amy Schumer Bares Her Soul In 'The Girl With The Lower Back Tattoo'

10:03am August 19, 2016

by NPR Staff

Schumer's new essay collection is revealing, packed with personal diary entries going back to her preteen years — and funny. But she doesn't shy away from difficult topics like her sexual assault.

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Riveting 'Obelisk Gate' Shatters The Stillness

2:48pm August 18, 2016

by Amal El-Mohtar

N.K. Jemisin continues the story of the Stillness — a world constantly rocked by quakes, and the rare, gifted people who can control them — in a second volume even more engrossing than the first.

Eating Yogurt Is Not Enough: Rebalancing The Ecosystem Of 'The Microbes Within Us'

1:28pm August 18, 2016

Ed Yong, author of I Contain Multitudes, says someday we might be able to improve our health by taking probiotics, but "we are still in the very early stages of working out how to do this."

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'The Hike' Turns Traditional Fairy Tales Inside Out

10:31am August 18, 2016

by Jason Sheehan

Drew Magary's new novel is the strange story of average guy Ben, whose business meeting at a old country hotel turns into a bizarre odyssey through the woods, full of giant crickets and talking crabs.

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'Hillbilly Elegy' Recalls A Childhood Where Poverty Was 'The Family Tradition'

1:44pm August 17, 2016

J.D. Vance grew up in a Rust Belt town in Ohio, in a family from the hills of eastern Kentucky. His new memoir details the social isolation, poverty and addiction that afflict poor white communities.

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For The 'Oscars Of Romance,' Representation Matters

7:00am August 17, 2016

by Sonali Dev

The RITA awards are the Oscars of romance writing — but of more than 90 RITA finalists this year, only a handful featured heroes and heroines of color. We have a roundup of the ones that did.