Author Interviews

Economist Tyler Cowen believes that income inequality in America is only increasing. His new book is called Average Is Over: Powering America Beyond the Age of the Great Stagnation.

Tired Of Inequality? One Economist Says It'll Only Get Worse

9:57am September 12, 2013

by NPR Staff

In his new book, Average Is Over, Tyler Cowen predicts that America will become a new, more creative meritocracy. Though he believes a rise in income inequality is inevitable, he hopes that "happiness inequality isn't going up in the same way."

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Books
Arts

Woodrow Wilson Brought New Executive Style To The White House

4:41pm September 10, 2013

No. 28 was the first president to team up with America's legislative branch, and he used a groundbreaking moral argument to get the U.S. involved in World War I. A. Scott Berg's new book, Wilson, fills in missing pieces of the president's life.

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Sheri Fink's first book, War Hospital: A True Story of Surgery and Survival, followed medical professionals under siege during the genocide in Srebrenica, Bosnia-Herzegovina.

During Katrina, 'Memorial' Doctors Chose Who Lived, Who Died

7:08am September 10, 2013

With waters rising and their hospital on the verge of losing power, Memorial Medical Center staff were faced with an ethical question: Who to save first? Sheri Fink reconstructs their decisions — from hastening patients' deaths to evacuating the sickest last — in Five Days at Memorial.

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Jonathan Lethem's other books include The Ecstasy of Influence, Chronic City and Girl in Landscape.

Books
Arts

For Novelist Jonathan Lethem, Radicalism Runs In The Family

3:01pm September 09, 2013

His new book, Dissident Gardens, follows three generations of an activist family, from Rose, a secular Jew and communist, to Sergius, her commune-raised grandson. The book is fiction, but its characters were inspired by Lethem's own family story.

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Books
Arts

'Be Mine': Love And Identity Tangled In Tehran

5:33pm September 07, 2013

by NPR Staff

In her debut novel, Iranian-American Sara Farizan tells the story of two teenage girls, secretly in love. Sahar faces a crisis when she discovers Nasrin is engaged, and considers gender-reassignment surgery as a way for them to stay together. Farizan speaks with NPR's Jacki Lyden about the book and her own struggle with her sexual orientation.

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Jesse Walker is a senior editor at Reason magazine.

Books
Arts

Suspicious? In 'United States Of Paranoia,' It's Not Just You

1:01pm September 07, 2013

by NPR Staff

Author Jesse Walker argues that believing in shadowy cabals and ominous secrets isn't just for people on the margins — it's as American as apple pie. He says that our nation's paranoia stretches back to the colonial era, and that some conspiracy theories are believed by a majority of Americans.

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Daniel Woodrell's novel Winter's Bone -- a dark family saga set in the Ozarks — was adapted into a film in 2010. Woodrell returned to his hometown of West Plains, Mo., about 20 years ago and has been writing there ever since.

Books
Arts

'Winter's Bone' Author Revisits A Tragedy In His Ozarks Hometown

6:42pm September 05, 2013

by Lynn Neary

For nearly a century, Daniel Woodrell's hometown of West Plains, Mo., has been haunted by a dance-hall explosion that killed dozens of the town's young people in 1928. Woodrell explores the disaster — and his Ozarks roots — in his new novel The Maid's Version.

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American composer Irving Berlin sings his song "God Bless America" in front of Boy Scouts troop members and spectators gathered at a tent in Monticello, New York in 1940. Instead of collecting royalties from "God Bless America," Berlin created a fund that

From Peace To Patriotism: The Shifting Identity Of 'God Bless America'

10:47am September 03, 2013

by NPR Staff

In the new book God Bless America: The Surprising History of an Iconic Song, author Sheryl Kaskowitz explores the lyrical evolution of Irving Berlin's enduring song and explains how its early popularity reflected the anxiety of the pre-war period and sparked a surprising anti-Semitic and xenophobic backlash.

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Books
Arts

Shacochis Spans Generations In 'The Woman Who Lost Her Soul'

10:06am September 01, 2013

by NPR Staff

In his new book, The Woman Who Lost Her Soul, Bob Shacochis returns to Haiti, but also takes the reader across continents and generations. The 700-page book has been compared to the work of Joseph Conrad, Graham Greene and Norman Mailer.

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Barry Nalebuff (left) and Seth Goldman cofounded Honest Tea in 1997. Goldman is the company's TeaEO. Nalebuff is a professor at Yale School of Management.

Honest Tea Founders Tell Their Story Of Not-Too-Sweet Success

9:51am August 30, 2013

by NPR Staff

Back in the 1990s, Seth Goldman and Barry Nalebuff were tired of the super sweet iced teas available in stores. So they started their own company to cater to "more sophisticated, grown-up tastes." They chronicle their adventures and misadventures in a graphic novel called Mission In A Bottle.

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