Author Interviews

Author Jennifer Jordan at an apple farm in the Central coast of California circa 1976.

Books
Arts

Why Are We Drawn To Heirloom Fruits And Veggies? They're 'Edible Memory'

2:01pm September 04, 2015

by Eliza Barclay

Heirloom foods have grown in popularity, making their way into gardens, farms, farmers markets and restaurants. A sociologist says they offer a powerful emotional and physical connection to the past.

As different as their backgrounds were, and even their approaches to judging, when it came to women's rights, Ruth Bader Ginsburg (left) and Sandra Day O'Connor were allies.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg And Sandra Day O'Connor, 'Sisters In Law'

11:17am September 02, 2015

by Nina Totenberg

A new book explains that the women were not personal friends, but they were strong allies on the Supreme Court bench, especially in the legal fight for women's equality.

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Books

Novelist Amy Stewart Turns 1914 Traffic Accident Into 'Girl Waits With Gun'

8:03pm September 01, 2015

Steve Inskeep talks to Amy Stewart about her novel Girl Waits With Gun. It's based on the story of a woman who went on to become one of the first female deputy sheriffs in early 20th century America.

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Jonathan Franzen is also the author of Freedom and the essay collection How To Be Alone.

Books
Arts

Jonathan Franzen On Writing: It's An 'Escape From Everything'

5:44pm September 01, 2015

The author of The Corrections and the new novel Purity likens writing to losing himself in a dream. "When it's really going well ... you're in a fantasy land and feeling no pain," he says.

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Oliver Sacks was an author, physician and a professor of neurology at the New York University School of Medicine.

Oliver Sacks: A Neurologist At The 'Intersection Of Fact And Fable'

7:52am September 01, 2015

The neurologist, who died Sunday, saw "infinitely moving, dramatic, romantic situations" during his decades studying the human brain. Fresh Air remembers Sacks with two interviews from 1985 and 2012.

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Books
Arts

Ursula K. Le Guin Steers Her Craft Into A New Century

7:55pm August 31, 2015

by NPR Staff

The famed novelist says that at 85 she no longer has the energy to write another book, but she's just released a revised and updated edition of her manual for aspiring writers, Steering the Craft.

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Martin Ford is the founder of a Silicon Valley-based software development firm and author of Lights in the Tunnel: Automation, Accelerating Technology and the Economy of the Future.

Attention White-Collar Workers: The Robots Are Coming For Your Jobs

12:45pm August 31, 2015

The machines have long been used in manufacturing, but Martin Ford, author of Rise of the Robots, says they're now poised to replace humans as teachers, lawyers and even journalists.

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Books
Arts

The Glimmering Sheen Of A Wide World Seen From Inside A Bubble

6:41pm August 30, 2015

by NPR Staff

The teen heroine of Nicola Yoon's debut novel, Everything, Everything, has a disorder that bars her from leaving her house. Still, her world is vast, filled with writings, drawings — and new love.

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Marie Jalowicz Simon survived the Holocaust by hiding with friends and strangers in Berlin.

A Young Woman Goes 'Underground In Berlin' To Escape The Holocaust

3:54pm August 30, 2015

by NPR Staff

Hermann Simon's mother lived as a Jew in Berlin during World War II. Through cunning and disguise, Marie Jalowicz Simon managed to evade the Nazis right under their noses.

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Books
Arts

For Carl Phillips, Poetry Is Experience Transformed — Not Transcribed

5:11pm August 29, 2015

by NPR Staff

Phillips' new collection is both raw and refined, drawing on intimate experience while shunning autobiography. "I become uncomfortable when people make an equation between author and poem," he says.

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