NPR Bestsellers: Paperback Fiction, Week Of April 30, 2015
Thomas Cromwell counsels England's King Henry VIII on his efforts to marry Anne Boleyn in Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall. It appears at No. 12.
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NPR Bestsellers: Hardcover Fiction, Week Of April 30, 2015
Debuting at No. 3, Toni Morrison's God Help the Child looks at how childhood trauma affects life as an adult.
William Faulkner Makes Us Wonder: What's So Great About Poetry, Anyhow?
William Faulkner — one of the great American novelists — thought of himself as a failed poet. Which made our critic Juan Vidal wonder: What is it about poetry that makes us hold it above other arts?
Ohio Kidnapping Survivors Recount Captivity, Escape From Horror
In 2013, three young women who had vanished years earlier escaped from a house where they had been held captive. Amanda Berry and Gina DeJesus, along with writer Mary Jordan, discuss their new memoir.
3,600-Page Autobiographical Novel Is An Honest And Masterful 'Selfie'
My Struggle is about Karl Ove Knausgaard's wrangle with his father, with death, with his muse and so on. The 46-year-old Norwegian's pointedly unliterary book has become a literary sensation.
Jon Krakauer Tells A 'Depressingly Typical' Story Of College Town Rapes
Krakauer's Missoula looks at stories of women who have been sexually assaulted by people they know. He says rape is unlike other crimes because in other crimes, "the victim isn't assumed to be lying."
Graphic Novel About Holocaust 'Maus' Banned In Russia For Its Cover
NPR's Robert Siegel talks with author and illustrator Art Spiegelman about how his book Maus, the very antithesis of Nazi propaganda, was purged from Moscow stores because of a swastika on the cover.
'Ashley's War' Details Vital Work Of Female Soldiers In Afghanistan
A new book looks at the women who served alongside elite special operations units in order to connect with a population that was off-limits to male soldiers: Afghan women.
'SuperMutant Magic Academy' Is Hogwarts With Nuts (And A Cherry)
Kurt Vonnegut once famously described book critics as donning armor to battle a hot fudge sundae. Jillian Tamaki takes on Harry Potter in SuperMutant Magic Academy, but she's tossing marshmallows.
A Futuristic Private Eye Gets In Over Her Head In 'Depth'
Lev AC Rosen's dystopian thriller, set in an underwater New York City, is an expert mix of the sci-fi and hardboiled genres. Reviewer Jason Heller calls it a nervy crime caper with hidden depths.