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Books
Arts

'Lovelace And Babbage' Is A Thrilling Adventure

1:10pm April 23, 2015

by Etelka Lehoczky

Sydney Padua's rollicking graphic novel about computing pioneers Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace transforms punch cards and little brass cogs into the stuff of legend, says critic Etelka Lehoczky.

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'Vermilion' Finds New Magic In The Old West

2:29pm April 22, 2015

by Jason Heller

Molly Tanzer's grit-and-ghosts adventure follows a young woman tasked with guiding troubled spirits in a colorfully diverse, alternate-history Wild West, full of talking animals and vampires.

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Arts

'I Regret Everything': Toni Morrison Looks Back On Her Personal Life

12:15pm April 22, 2015

"It's not profound regret," Morrison tells Fresh Air. "It's just a wiping up of tiny little messes that you didn't recognize as mess when they were going on." Her latest book is God Help the Child.

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Toni Morrison's novels include Beloved, The Bluest Eye and Song of Solomon. She won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1993.

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Toni Morrison's New Novel Is Best Read With Her Backlist In Mind

12:14pm April 22, 2015

by Saeed Jones

The Nobel Prize winner has become a giant in the literary world, but reviewer Saeed Jones says that her latest novel can only stand with confidence when it has the idea of the author as its spine.

Bradley's 'China Mirage' Portrays A Long-Running U.S. Mistake In Asia

8:55am April 22, 2015

Morning Edition's Steve Inskeep talks to author and historian James Bradley, about his his new book, The China Mirage: The Hidden History of the American Disaster in Asia.

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After 20 Years On The Job, NYC Police Officer Tells His Intense Stories

6:46am April 22, 2015

"Your heart is pounding; your adrenaline is shooting out of your ears," Steve Osborne says. "And you got one second to get it right." He retired from the force in 2003. His memoir is called The Job.

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Detail from cover of Ross Macdonald: Four Novels of the 1950s

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Revisiting A Suburbia-Gone-Sour In Ross Macdonald's Crime Fiction

4:54pm April 21, 2015

by Maureen Corrigan

A reissue of four of the detective writer's 1950s novels excavates the dark depths of California's suburban decay. Maureen Corrigan praises Macdonald's "psychological depth" and "penetrating vision."

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Attica Locke's other books include Black Water Rising and The Cutting Season.

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No Demons, No Angels: Attica Locke Aims For Black Characters Who Are Human

2:40pm April 21, 2015

by NPR Staff

In her new novel, Pleasantville, and on TV's Empire, Locke does her best to avoid simple stories. "You do some good stuff and you do some bad stuff," she says. "We exist in the middle."

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'One Of Us' Is A Difficult, Unforgettable Look At Tragedy

12:29pm April 21, 2015

by Michael Schaub

Journalist Åsne Seierstad's new book retells the story of Norway's Anders Breivik, from his troubled, violent childhood to his 2011 killing spree. Critic Michael Schaub calls it a painful masterpiece.

Small South Carolina Newspaper Takes Home Top Pulitzer Prize

6:01am April 21, 2015

by Neda Ulaby

The winners of this year's Pulitzer Prizes in journalism, fiction, poetry, drama, music, biography, history and nonfiction were announced Monday at Columbia University in New York.

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