Author Interviews

The Peter Cooper Village and Stuyvesant Town apartment complex is seen from Waterside Plaza in 2006, the same year it was sold in a record-breaking real estate deal.

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The Botched NY Real Estate Deal That Lost 'Other People' Billions

8:50pm April 03, 2013

by NPR Staff

In 2006, two Manhattan housing projects were at the center of a real estate fiasco that would come to epitomize the housing crisis. Charles Bagli's Other People's Money explains how the government of Singapore was among those who paid for the mistakes of New York's real estate giants.

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A Father Tells The Story Of His Son's Struggle To Stay 'Clean'

1:09pm April 03, 2013

"The view that drug use is a moral choice is pervasive, pernicious and wrong," writes David Sheff in Clean, a critical look at the nation's approach to drug treatment. Sheff argues that we should not wait for "rock bottom" — that addiction should be treated promptly, just like any other disease.

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In Digestion: Mary Roach Explains What Happens To The Food We Eat

1:54pm April 01, 2013

With books like Stiff and Spook, Roach has built a reputation for making unpalatable subjects entertaining. In her new book, Gulp, she tackles the human digestive system, from the mouth on down. Along the way, she gets a sedation-free colonoscopy and goes on location for a fecal transplant.

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With Humor And Sorrow, 'Life After Life' Explores The Moment Of Death

7:17pm March 28, 2013

by NPR Staff

From an old man feigning dementia to a judge's widow who keeps a scrapbook of murder, the story of Pine Haven's retired residents isn't all seriousness and tragedy. In her new novel, Jill McCorkle draws from the sometimes sad, sometimes comical experience of watching her own parents age.

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A woman uses a new iPad and iPhone 4 in the office. Nizhnevartovsk, Russia, Sept. 16, 2012.

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In A World That's Always On, We Are Trapped In The 'Present'

5:59pm March 27, 2013

by NPR Staff

In Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now, Douglas Rushkoff cautions against living in the perennial, virtual now. "It's very hard for us to orient ourselves," he says, "to look forward to things, to join movements with goals, to invest in the future."

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A Slap in the Face: Why Insults Hurt — And Why They Shouldn't by William B. Irvine

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You're So Dumb, You Probably Think This Book Is About Getting Slapped

5:58pm March 27, 2013

by NPR Staff

"Your mother was a hamster, and your father smelt of elderberries!" Philosophy professor William Irvine's new book, A Slap in the Face, is a compendium of insults — and a scholarly look at why we're constantly compelled to one-up each other.

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The only known photograph of the 1935 Bismarck town team.

Integrated Baseball, A Decade Before Jackie Robinson

5:05pm March 27, 2013

by NPR Staff

Over ten years before Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in the major leagues, a little-known baseball team went to bat with players both black and white. Journalist Tom Dunkel writes about the team from Bismarck, N.D., in his new book Color Blind.

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Lynne Olson, a former journalist for The Baltimore Sun, is also the author of Citizens of London.

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'Angry Days' Shows An America Torn Over Entering World War II

3:30pm March 26, 2013

World War II is often thought of as a good and just war — a war the U.S. had to fight. But it wasn't that simple. Public debate was heated between interventionism, which President Roosevelt supported, and isolationism, which aviator Charles Lindbergh became an unofficial spokesman for.

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How And Why The Hollywood Star Machine Made 'Gods Like Us'

2:25pm March 25, 2013

In a new book about movie stardom and fame, Boston Globe film critic Ty Burr looks at the evolving history of the relationship between movie stars and the people who love them, and at how changing technology influences the kinds of stars the public wants.

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Dan Fagin is an associate professor of journalism and the director of the science, health, and environmental reporting program at New York University's Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute.

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For Toms River, An Imperfect Salvation

2:03pm March 25, 2013

by NPR Staff

Toms River: A Story of Science and Salvation traces the story of a New Jersey town plagued by two generations of toxic waste dumping. Its author, Dan Fagin, talks about the origins of dumping in Toms River and its legacy today.

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