Books

Books
Arts

'The Veiled Throne' keeps the flame of the Dandelion Dynasty burning on every page

4:08am December 10, 2021

by Jason Sheehan

A thousand pages is a lot. But there's Ken Liu's voice to hold onto in this third installment of his epic — beautifully deployed and fully in command of the language of his imaginary universe.

Books
Arts

A visual feast: 5 favorite art books of 2021

6:31am December 09, 2021

by Heller McAlpin

Most readers spend a lot of time happily immersed in words. But for a change of pace, these gorgeous art books provide hours of blissful visual diversion.

Mel Brooks (shown here in 1984) calls comedy his "delicious refuge" from the world: "I hide in humor and comedy. I love it."

Books
Arts

Mel Brooks says his only regret as a comedian is the jokes he didn't tell

9:02pm December 07, 2021

by Terry Gross

Brooks wrote countless edgy jokes over the years, but he doesn't regret any of them. He calls comedy his "delicious refuge" from the world. "I hide in humor," he says. His new memoir is All About Me!

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Greg Tate, a powerful chronicler and critic of Black life and culture, has died at 64

5:18pm December 07, 2021

by Andrew Limbong

Tate was a longtime staff writer at The Village Voice, where he documented Black art and culture. He eventually became a leading figure in cultural criticism.

Books We Love: Ailsa Chang picks 'Empire Of Pain' by Patrick Radden Keefe

4:59pm December 07, 2021

NPR is celebrating Books We Love from 2021. Ailsa Chang shares one of her favorite reads from the year: Patrick Radden Keefe's deep dive into the Sackler dynasty, Empire of Pain.

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Three of the student authors of Who Is Florence Price? (left to right: Sebastián Núñez, Hazel Peebles and Sophia Shao), joined by their English teacher, Shannon Potts.

These NYC kids have written the history of an overlooked Black female composer

4:18pm December 07, 2021

by Anastasia Tsioulcas

A group of sixth, seventh and eighth grade students realized there was no children's book about the composer Florence Price. So they wrote, illustrated and published their own.

Books

Sharon Gless shares work and family stories in her new memoir

5:27am December 07, 2021

NPR's Rachel Martin talks to actress Sharon Gless — of Cagney & Lacey fame — about her new memoir: Apparently There Were Complaints.

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Three fall 2021 YA graphic novels that are worth s look.

Books
Arts

3 YA graphic novels that highlight the timelessness of teenage themes this autumn

5:07am December 07, 2021

by Etelka Lehoczky

Among the flood of titles aimed at the high-school set this fall, a few stand apart for their unorthodox stories, deft artwork and potent themes.

Abdulrazak Gurnah, a Tanzanian-born novelist and academic who lives in the U.K., poses with his 2021 Nobel Prize in Literature medal after being presented it at the Swedish ambassador's residence in London.

Books
Arts

No black-tie dinner with the Swedish king for this year's Nobel Prize winners

6:23pm December 06, 2021

by Mia Estrada

Instead, most of the laureates are receiving their awards in their home countries because the pandemic has disrupted the ceremonies yet again.

Encore: Bette Midler discusses her children's book, 'The Tale Of The Mandarin Duck'

5:06pm December 06, 2021

NPR's Ari Shapiro talks with Bette Midler about her children's book, The Tale of the Mandarin Duck.