Books

Books
Arts

Profane And Pornographic, Irvine Welsh's Latest Plumbs A New Kind Of Emptiness

7:00am February 06, 2016

by Jason Heller

A Decent Ride brings back many of Welsh's beloved characters with their ribald humor and Scottish vernacular, but now they must address a new challenge: aging.

The High Mountains of Portugal by Yann Martel.

Books
Arts

Confronting Loss While Scaling 'The High Mountains Of Portugal'

6:07pm February 05, 2016

by Jean Zimmerman

Yann Martel, author of The Life of Pi, conjures up three stories grounded in grief and magical realism in his latest novel.

Books
Arts

Chris Offutt Reveals A Family Secret In 'My Father, The Pornographer'

2:10pm February 05, 2016

Offutt's late father went from running a small insurance agency to writing more than 400 books, mostly pornography. Originally broadcast March 2, 2015.

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Food writer Bee Wilson says that babies are most open to trying new flavors between the ages of 4 and 7 months.

In Baby's 'First Bite,' A Chance To Shape A Child's Taste

3:01pm February 04, 2016

Bee Wilson's new book, First Bite, examines how genetics, culture, memory and early feeding patterns influence the palate. She says babies are most open to new flavors between ages 4 and 7 months.

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Books
Arts

Scouring Brazil For A Celebrated Novelist

7:00am February 04, 2016

by Heller McAlpin

When a renowned Brazilian writer mysteriously vanishes in Idra Novey's novel Ways to Disappear, her children and an American translator work to uncover the reason behind the writer's disappearance.

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.

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Paul Tang, owner of the People's Bookstore in Hong Kong, is still selling works that are critical of the Chinese leadership and are banned on the mainland. Five people in the Hong Kong book industry disappeared recently. Some have turned up in police cust

The Hong Kong Bookseller Who's Keeping 'Banned' Books On His Shelves

3:51pm February 03, 2016

by Anthony Kuhn

Five people in Hong Kong's book industry have disappeared. All were linked to books forbidden in mainland China. Paul Tang says he has no plans to remove works critical of the Chinese leadership.

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Books
Arts

A Writer Straddles Jerusalem's Two Worlds In 'Native'

2:17pm February 03, 2016

by Jason Sheehan

With wit and subtle anecdote, Sayed Kashua explores the meaning of identity, prejudice and everyday life as an Arab-Israeli newspaper writer living in Jerusalem.

Books
Arts

Author Yann Martel On 'That Deeply Unreasonable Phenomenon' Of Faith

5:32pm February 02, 2016

by NPR Staff

Martel's new book, The High Mountains of Portugal, shares some themes with his 2001 novel, Life of Pi: Both feature animals (in this case, a chimpanzee) and both struggle with questions of faith.

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Who Are America's 'Homegrown Terrorists'?

1:27pm February 02, 2016

CNN's Peter Bergen describes how the Internet and social media have been used to radicalize and recruit Americans to jihad — and how some new jihadists then use those same tools to draw in others.

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