Books

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Arts

Queen Of The Desert Gertrude Bell, In Her Own Words

10:23am August 13, 2015

by Genevieve Valentine

Explorer and activist Bell is best remembered today for helping create the modern state of Iraq. A smartly edited new collection of her writings presents a fascinating (if not always smooth) portrait.

Books

Author Walter Mosley Grew Up In LA But His Writing Is Soaked In The South

8:20am August 13, 2015

Crime novelist Walter Mosley has family roots in New Orleans. In a conversation with Renee Montagne, he offers his reflections on life in Louisiana, before and after Hurricane Katrina.

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A House That's Not A Home In 'Bright Lines'

7:03am August 13, 2015

by Genevieve Valentine

Tanwi Nandini Islam's debut novel is an understated queer coming-of-age tale, set in a vividly-portrayed Brooklyn brownstone whose residents all ache for some kind of home they've never been to.

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'Cure' Hits The Reset Button On Suicidal Minds

11:32pm August 12, 2015

by Jason Sheehan

Jesse Ball's A Cure For Suicide is a poignant psychological dystopia about dealing with painful memories and the true price of starting over.

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Pizza As Autobiography In 'Slice Harvester'

7:09pm August 12, 2015

by Jason Heller

Colin Atrophy Hagendorf decided to review a plain slice of pizza from every joint in Manhattan — a project that evolved into a two-fisted memoir of his own life and struggles with substance abuse.

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In 'Let Me Explain You,' Food Serves As Language When It Fails

12:04pm August 12, 2015

Annie Liontas talks about her debut novel, in which a Greek immigrant patriarch of a dysfunctional family has a premonition that he has only 10 days to live.

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A tiny jar containing a thumb drive of poetry, given to Alexander by a young man at a reading.

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The Kindness Of Strangers Connects A Poet To Her Own Grief

7:01pm August 11, 2015

by NPR Staff

Poet Elizabeth Alexander's new book is a memoir of her life with her husband, who died three years ago. During her book tour, readers began giving her keepsakes that help her work through her grief.

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Dense, Fantastical 'Prodigies' Rewards The Patient Reader

4:28pm August 11, 2015

by Carmen Machado

Angélica Gorodischer's episodic, lyrical new novel follows (in a meandering sort of way) the magically tinged lives of a motley cast of boarders in a house that once belonged to a famous German poet.

Rich Kissee, operations manager for the Santa Margarita Water District, stands on the edge of a water runoff reservoir in Rancho Santa Margarita, Calif.

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'The Water Knife' Previews A Future Drought Scenario

3:53pm August 11, 2015

by Adam Frank

A new novel doesn't take the easy way out but, instead, asks questions about the mutations of human institutions under the pressure of global warming, says commentator Adam Frank.

Skulls and bones are seen in the ossuary chapel in the Czech Republic town of Sedlec, one of the sites Denise Inge describes in her book, The Tour of Bones.

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Arts

Confronting Mortality In An Unsettling, Inspiring 'Tour Of Bones'

2:23pm August 11, 2015

by Maureen Corrigan

Before her death in 2014, author Denise Inge took a spiritual journey to bone houses throughout Europe. Critic Maureen Corrigan says the resulting book, The Tour of Bones, is "strange and chaotic."

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