Book News & Features

Austin Reed was an indentured servant who set fire to his employer's farmhouse after he was whipped for "idleness." Reed was sent to The House of Refuge, the nation's first juvenile reformatory, and later sentenced to serve in New York's Auburn State Pris

Books
Arts

Written Behind Bars, This 1850s Memoir Links Prisons To Plantations

6:51pm February 26, 2016

by Lynn Neary

The Life and the Adventures of a Haunted Convict is the earliest known prison memoir by an African-American writer. Written by Austin Reed in the 1850s, it was discovered at an estate sale in 2009.

Queue Listen Now

Books
Arts

The 'Girl' In The Title: More Than A Marketing Trend

3:02pm February 22, 2016

by NPR Staff

Lately it seems as if every thriller written by a woman gets compared to two recent blockbusters: Gone Girl and The Girl on the Train. So what makes those two books so appealing and influential?

Queue Listen Now

Ann Goldstein is an editor at The New Yorker. She says she tries to stick to the text when she translates. "You're not trying to write your own version of it," she says.

Books
Arts

Translator Behind Elena Ferrante Novels Says Her Job Is To Be An 'Enabler'

11:02am February 20, 2016

by NPR Staff

Ann Goldstein is the translator for the mysterious novelist's popular Neapolitan series. She says her role is to "enable someone to express him or herself as much as he or she possibly can."

Queue Listen Now

Harper Lee Remembered As Reclusive

8:25am February 20, 2016

Linda Wertheimer talks to Harper Lee's longtime friend Wayne Flynt about the late author. He will deliver Lee's eulogy.

Italian writer Umberto Eco attends an event at the Paris Book Fair on March 30, 2010.

Italian Author And Philosopher Umberto Eco Dead At 84

9:24pm February 19, 2016

by Merrit Kennedy

Internationally acclaimed Italian author Umberto Eco has died, according to his American publisher. He was 84. He launched his career as a novelist with The Name of the Rose in 1980.

Lee (center) attends a Los Angeles Public Library Awards Dinner in her honor at The Richard J. Riordan Central Library Maguire Gardens in 2005.

Books
Arts

The Measure Of Harper Lee: A Life Shaped By A Towering Text

6:05pm February 19, 2016

The author, who died Friday at 89, lived for decades in the shadow of her iconic novel, To Kill a Mockingbird. Yet there was more to Lee than her characters, however beloved they may remain.

Queue Listen Now

Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi (left) talks to the media alongside Argentine President Mauricio Macri in Buenos Aires on Tuesday. Renzi has inspired some mockery in the Italian press for reciting a poem he claimed was by Jorge Luis Borges, which, wel

Italian Prime Minister Botches His Attempt To Read Borges

5:59pm February 18, 2016

by Camila Domonoske

Matteo Renzi was visiting Argentina and thought he would read a poem by the country's most famous literary icon. He thought wrong: The poem he picked was emphatically not by Jorge Luis Borges.

It was recently announced that Aaron Sorkin will be adapting To Kill A Mockingbird for Broadway. Above, Scout's legs are tired after a particularly long "walk and talk." (Not really.) Above, Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch with Mary Badham as Scout and Phil

Books
Arts

To Sorkin A Mockingbird: Screenwriter Will Adapt Novel For Broadway

6:40pm February 12, 2016

by Lynn Neary

How will Aaron Sorkin's rapid-fire dialogue fit with Harper Lee's tale of racism and justice in the South?

Queue Listen Now

Lisa Lucas, publisher of Guernica magazine, will take over as executive director of the National Book Foundation on March 14.

Books
Arts

Lisa Lucas Takes The Reins At The National Book Foundation

5:57pm February 10, 2016

by Colin Dwyer

Lucas is the third executive director in the history of the foundation, which runs the National Book Awards. Her priority? Inclusivity: "Everyone is either a reader or a potential reader," she says.

Is Amazon Planning Hundreds Of Bookstores? Analysts Doubt It

10:01pm February 03, 2016

by Yuki Noguchi

A mall real estate executive let slip that Amazon plans to build up to 400 walk-in stores. Analysts were skeptical, and now the executive says his comment wasn't intended to represent Amazon's plans.

Queue Listen Now