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A Writer Expresses His 'Discontent' With Civilization

10:03am February 18, 2015

by Michael Schaub

Mohsin Hamid's new collection plays on the title of Sigmund Freud's classic Civilization and Its Discontents, but critic Michael Schaub says these essays are both more personal and wider ranging.

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'Tales Of The Marvellous' Is Indeed Very Strange

9:01am February 18, 2015

by Genevieve Valentine

These are not your father's fairy tales, but reviewer Genevieve Valentine says readers prepared to devote some time will find rich rewards in this newly translated volume of 10th-century Arab stories.

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Exclusive First Read: Anna Lyndsey's 'Girl In The Dark'

3:03pm February 17, 2015

by NPR Staff

Anna Lyndsey — a pseudonym — was an ordinary civil servant when she developed a rare disorder: A severe sensitivity to light. She deftly chronicles her shadowy new normal in Girl in the Dark.

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In Richard Price's New Novel, Haunted Cops And Cases They Couldn't Close

2:28pm February 17, 2015

Price says that in every precinct there's one cop who just can't let go of a case. "They all reminded me of Ahab ... looking for their whales," he says. Price's latest is called The Whites.

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The 'Man Who Touched His Own Heart' Changed Medicine

1:25pm February 17, 2015

Melissa Block talks to Rob Dunn about his new book, The Man Who Touched His Own Heart, a history of science and medicine's efforts to understand the working of the human heart.

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King Charles I was sentenced to death on Jan. 27, 1649, and executed three days later.

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King, Tyrant, Beheaded Traitor: The Many Trials Of Charles I

10:10am February 17, 2015

by NPR Staff

The British monarch ruled at a time of civil war — and was blamed for much of the bloodshed. In Killers of the King, Charles Spencer tells the story of the men who signed the king's death warrant.

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'Find Me' Gets Lost Along The Way

10:03am February 17, 2015

by Jason Heller

Reviewer Jason Heller says Laura Van Den Berg's first novel has a stellar setup — mysterious young woman, post-disease-apocalypse — but drifts listlessly, never quite living up to its premise.

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Black Slugs And 'Black Holes,' An Artful Portrait Of Depression

7:03am February 17, 2015

by Tasha Robinson

Jasmine Warga's debut young adult novel My Heart and Other Black Holes follows two teens who make a suicide pact, in a carefully layered character study that sometimes stumbles on the details.

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Philip Levine Reads 'What Work Is'

7:35pm February 16, 2015

Former U.S. poet laureate and Pulitzer Prize winner Philip Levine died on Saturday at the age of 87. In Levine's memory, we air his reading of the poem "What Work Is."

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Book Review: 'The Evening Chorus'

7:35pm February 16, 2015

by Alan Cheuse

Alan Cheuse reviews The Evening Chorus by Helen Humphries.

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