Books

Books
Arts

'Empire Of Wild' Tells A Small Story — But Not A Slight One

7:00am July 29, 2020

by Jason Sheehan

Cherie Dimaline's new novel seems small in scope — it's about a woman who loses her husband and is determined to bring him back, nothing more than that — but it's rich, tightly written and powerful.

Maria Sherman's new book gives critical consideration to a too-often maligned phenomenon within pop music: the boy band.

A New Book Traces The History Of Boy Bands, The Pop Phenomenon 'Larger Than Life'

7:59pm July 28, 2020

Author and music critic Maria Sherman talks about her new book, Larger Than Life: A History of Boy Bands from NKOTB to BTS and forgoing rock elitism to give into the joy of boy band pop songs.

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When it comes to the climate change, "you can see these vast changes in the future, and you can be worried about them, but you can still continue to do good and work in the moment for small things," says Zach St. George. Above, a sequoia in California's G

Believe It Or Not, Forests Migrate — But Not Fast Enough For Climate Change

4:19pm July 28, 2020

by Ari Shapiro

Forests "are restless things," writes Zach St. George in his new book The Journeys of Trees. He explains how, over millennia, forests creep inch by inch to more hospitable places.

Natasha Trethewey served as U.S. poet laureate in 2012 and 2013. She won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize in poetry for her 2006 collection Native Guard.

Books
Arts

After Years Of 'Willed Amnesia,' Trethewey Opens Up About Her Murdered Mother

12:23pm July 28, 2020

by Terry Gross

When Natasha Trethewey was 19, her stepfather killed her mother. Tretheway says she aimed to "forge a new life for myself that didn't include that past." Her new memoir is Memorial Drive.

Juanita Giles and her mother, Mary Morton Giles.

Books
Arts

What I Read To My Mother On Her Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Last Day

10:40am July 28, 2020

by Juanita Giles

Our kids' books columnist Juanita Giles recently lost her mother to COVID-19; she says that when she was picking books to read at her mother's bedside, Judith Viorst's bad-day classic was just right.

Majority counsel Norm Eisen attends a House Judiciary Committee hearing on the impeachment of U.S. President Donald Trump on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, Dec. 4, 2019

Norm Eisen Says He Drafted 10 Articles Of Impeachment A Month Before Inquiry

5:56pm July 27, 2020

by Ari Shapiro

In a new book, A Case for the American People, the Judiciary Committee special counsel during impeachment traces the process. Of Trump, he tells NPR: "He understands what he's doing. It is a pattern."

Mike Birbiglia was initially reluctant to become a father, but his wife, Jen Stein, saw things things differently. "I felt like [parenthood] was the kind of challenge that we were ready for," she says.

Books
Arts

'Reluctant Dad' Mike Birbiglia And Poet Jen Stein Share 'Painful' Parenting Truths

1:40pm July 27, 2020

by Terry Gross

In the memoir, The New One, comic Birbiglia and his wife, Jen Stein, open up about his ambivalence about fatherhood and the strain it had on their marriage.

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Memorial Drive: A Daughter's Memoir, by Natasha Trethewey

A Daughter Unearths And Remembers Trauma In 'Memorial Drive'

1:11pm July 27, 2020

by Hope Wabuke

Pulitzer Prize winning poet Natasha Trethewey explores the relationship between trauma, agency, and voice as she excavates the lingering effects of her mother's murder upon her life.

Books

Trethewey's 'Memorial Drive' Tells The Story Of Her Mother's Murder

8:16am July 26, 2020

Natasha Trethewey is a two-time U.S. Poet Laureate and a Pulitzer Prize winner. Now she's written a memoir about her mother. She talks to NPR's Sarah McCammon about Memorial Drive.

Books
Arts

'Crooked Hallelujah' Sings Of Beauty And Trouble Between Mothers And Daughters

8:16am July 26, 2020

by Sarah McCammon

Kelli Jo Ford's novel follows three generations of Cherokee women trying to forge a future in the harsh environment of the 1980s oil boom in Texas — and learning just how difficult that can be.