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'Companion Piece' connects two plagues and two female artists five centuries apart

5:00am May 02, 2022

by Heller McAlpin

By exploring binaries such as imagination versus reality and surface versus depth — with their often blurred boundaries — Ali Smith's latest challenges readers to embrace the indeterminate.

Books
Arts

'The No-Show' is an adventure in romantic storytelling

4:07pm May 01, 2022

by Carole V. Bell

At its best, Beth O'Leary's tender and fragmented narrative feels like a metaphor for experience — how we only ever know part of the story of our lives and control even less.

Books

A new bride finds something supernatural with her rich husband in 'The Hacienda'

9:14am May 01, 2022

by Ayesha Rascoe

A woman marries a rich man. But what happened to his first wife? And why is his home so cold, so creepy? Ayesha Rascoe talks with Isabel Cañas about her debut novel, "The Hacienda."

What do you call a flower that flits from bird to bird? Which birds dictate the order of the flock while it flies?

Pablo Neruda's question poems, now translated and illustrated for children

7:39am May 01, 2022

by Miranda Mazariegos

Neruda's Book of Questions is well known in Latin American literature. A new bilingual, illustrated selection of his poems gives English-speaking children an opportunity to interrogate the world.

Neal Adams revitalized popular comic book characters including Batman, the Green Lantern, Superman and the X-Men, by reimagining them in a more realistic style.

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Arts

Neal Adams, comic book legend and defender of artists' rights, dies at 80

10:20pm April 30, 2022

by Dustin Jones

Neal Adams revolutionized the comic book industry with his hyper-realistic style for characters such as Batman, Superman, the Green Lantern and the X-Men.

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Arts

Fady Joudah shares his favorite #NPRPoetry submissions

5:23pm April 30, 2022

NPR's Michel Martin speaks with poet Fady Joudah about his writing and his favorite listener submissions for National Poetry Month.

Filmmaker and author John Waters at his home in Baltimore. This year marks the 50th anniversary of his landmark film, Pink Flamingos, and he's releasing his first novel, Liarmouth: A Feel-Bad Romance.

Books
Arts

A lot of material from this John Waters interview couldn't be published

9:40am April 30, 2022

by Andrew Limbong

It's been 50 years since the famed director released the movie Pink Flamingos. And as much as the world's changed since then, his first-ever novel shows that his propensity for bad taste ...hasn't.

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Books

The 'Gandalf of pizza' speaks to the spiritual side of comfort food

8:58am April 30, 2022

by Neda Ulaby

In his new book "Pizza Quest," Peter Reinhart describes his spiritual obsession with what he calls "the ultimate comfort food."

Books

Hernan Diaz's anticipated novel 'Trust' probes the illusion of money — and the truth

8:03am April 30, 2022

by Scott Simon

NPR's Scott Simon talks with Hernan Diaz about his novel, "Trust." It tells the story of a New York tycoon who takes advantage of the 1929 crash, and his attempts to rewrite and control his own story.

The Great Zapfino, written by Mac Barnett and illustrated by Marla Frazee

Books
Arts

Behold! 'The Great Zapfino' takes a big leap to overcome his fears

8:00am April 30, 2022

by Samantha Balaban

A circus performer whose act is called "The Leap For Life" loses his nerve and gets a regular job as an elevator operator. Then a moment comes when The Great Zapfino must finally perform.