The Plan To Give E-Books To Poor Kids
Today, President Obama announced a massive effort with major publishers to make thousands of e-book titles free for low-income kids.
Books
Dozens Of Writers Join Protest Of Free Speech Award For 'Charlie Hebdo'
Nearly 150 writers have now signed an open letter that condemns the attacks on the French satirical magazine, but questions whether it deserves a free speech prize for its willingness to offend.
Rome's Might Meets The Arabian Nights In 'Ember In The Ashes'
First-time novelist Sabaa Tahir creates Capital Letter Fantasy in An Ember in the Ashes, with rebel Scholars battling an ancient, brutal Empire. Critic Amal El-Mohtar calls it "frequently riveting."
NPR Bestsellers: Paperback Nonfiction, Week Of April 30, 2015
Anne-Marie O'Connor tells the story behind Gustav Klimt's 1907 masterpiece in The Lady in Gold. It appears at No. 14.
NPR Bestsellers: Paperback Fiction, Week Of April 30, 2015
Thomas Cromwell counsels England's King Henry VIII on his efforts to marry Anne Boleyn in Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall. It appears at No. 12.
NPR Bestsellers: Hardcover Fiction, Week Of April 30, 2015
Debuting at No. 3, Toni Morrison's God Help the Child looks at how childhood trauma affects life as an adult.
William Faulkner Makes Us Wonder: What's So Great About Poetry, Anyhow?
William Faulkner — one of the great American novelists — thought of himself as a failed poet. Which made our critic Juan Vidal wonder: What is it about poetry that makes us hold it above other arts?
Ohio Kidnapping Survivors Recount Captivity, Escape From Horror
In 2013, three young women who had vanished years earlier escaped from a house where they had been held captive. Amanda Berry and Gina DeJesus, along with writer Mary Jordan, discuss their new memoir.
3,600-Page Autobiographical Novel Is An Honest And Masterful 'Selfie'
My Struggle is about Karl Ove Knausgaard's wrangle with his father, with death, with his muse and so on. The 46-year-old Norwegian's pointedly unliterary book has become a literary sensation.
Jon Krakauer Tells A 'Depressingly Typical' Story Of College Town Rapes
Krakauer's Missoula looks at stories of women who have been sexually assaulted by people they know. He says rape is unlike other crimes because in other crimes, "the victim isn't assumed to be lying."