Books

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'The Quiet Americans' Examines Tragic Miscalculations In The CIA's Formative Years

1:35pm June 25, 2021

by Dave Davies

Author Scott Anderson chronicles the formative years of America's spy agency by focusing on four soldiers who became intelligence agents after World War II. Originally broadcast Sept. 1, 2020.

Queue Listen Now

Sexy Beasts comes to Netflix on July 21.

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What's Making Us Happy: A Guide For Your Weekend Watching, Listening And Reading

9:00am June 25, 2021

Every Friday, Pop Culture Happy Hour hosts and guests share the shows, movies, books and music that brought them joy. This week: Sexy Beasts, Launchpad shorts, a Hunchback history and Mythic Quest.

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You Don't Have To Be A Complete Nerd To Love This Novel ... But It Helps

7:00am June 23, 2021

by Jason Heller

Carrie Vaughn is a veteran science fiction and fantasy author who puts her years in the scene to good use in this rollicking tale about a high-tech fantasy theme park (think Westworld) gone wrong.

The Woman They Could Not Silence: One Woman, Her Incredible Fight for Freedom, and the Men Who Tried to Make Her Disappear, by Kate Moore

A Woman Is Committed To An Asylum For Thinking In 'The Woman They Could Not Silence'

6:13am June 23, 2021

by Annalisa Quinn

In a new book, The Radium Girls author Kate Moore follows the struggles of Elizabeth Packard who, locked up by her husband in 1860 for having opinions and voicing them, finds she's not the only one.

The NPR Summer Reader Poll 2021: Best SF/F of the Past Decade

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The Summer Reader Poll Returns: Tell Us Your Favorite New Sci-Fi And Fantasy Books

4:05pm June 22, 2021

by Petra Mayer

Our famous Summer Reader Poll is back! It's been 10 years since our original sci-fi and fantasy poll, and the field has changed so much since then — so tell us about your favorite new reads!

Ann Leckie, Fonda Lee, Amal El-Mohtar and Tochi Onyebuchi

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Summer Reader Poll 2021: Meet Our Expert Judges

1:42pm June 22, 2021

by Petra Mayer

As always, we've assembled a crack team of judges to help curate this year's final summer poll list — Amal El-Mohtar, Ann Leckie, Tochi Onyebuchi and Fonda Lee.

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'Light Perpetual' Imagines Adulthood For 5 Fictional Kids Killed In WWII Attack

12:33pm June 22, 2021

by Maureen Corrigan

In 1944 an attack on a London Woolworths killed 168 people. In his new novel, Francis Spufford explores what "might have been" for five young casualties of war.

A Quantum Life: My Unlikely Journey from the Street to the Stars, by Hakeem Oluseyi and Joshua Horwitz

From Poverty To Stanford, Memoir Tells A Physicist's Remarkable Tale

5:00am June 22, 2021

by Adam Frank

A Quantum Life is an important book to help understand the institutional hurdles that have kept science mostly white and male — and how the fire of inquiry can take root in a heart and lift it up.

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Ibram X. Kendi Recommends 6 Books To Help Your Kids Understand Race

5:43pm June 21, 2021

by Steve Inskeep

Ibram X. Kendi has been reading a lot of books about "the human rainbow" to his daughter — so we asked him to recommend some books kids can read to gain a better understanding of race in America.

Books

In 'She Memes Well,' Quinta Brunson Describes The Difficult Path To Her Comedy Career

5:36pm June 21, 2021

NPR's Ari Shapiro talks with actor and stand up comedian Quinta Brunson about her first book, an essay collection called She Memes Well.