Books

3 Books — And 3 Lessons — 20 Years After 9/11

2:39pm September 08, 2021

by Greg Myre

These books provide a detailed accounting of events that have defined the U.S. role in the world in the first part of the 21st century. None makes for cheery reading, but all offer sobering lessons.

On Freedom: Four Songs of Care and Constraint, by Maggie Nelson

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Arts

Writer Maggie Nelson Asks What It Means To Feel Free

11:58am September 08, 2021

by Annalisa Quinn

In On Freedom's allusive, blunt, funny essays, the author of The Argonauts and The Art of Cruelty tries to imagine freedom as it exists in the contemporary contexts of art, sex, drugs, and climate.

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Arts

In This Poetic New Novel, An Ancient Form Of Dance Frees A Modern Storyteller

7:00am September 08, 2021

by Marcela Davison Avilés

Shruti Swamy has won awards for her short fiction; The Archer, her debut novel, is a coming-of-age tale inspired by the graceful, precise storytelling of India's ancient Kathak dance form.

The state of Alabama has a new poet laureate: Ashley M. Jones is the first Black poet to claim the title, and at 31, also the youngest.

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Alabama's First Black Poet Laureate Takes A Personal Approach To 'Reparations'

6:56am September 08, 2021

by Jeevika Verma

Ashley M. Jones is Alabama's youngest and first Black poet laureate. Her new book Reparations Now! discusses America's history of Black oppression, and asks for more than monetary repairs.

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Arts

'Poet Warrior' Centers On The Role Of Poetry, Art And Music In Joy Harjo's Life

5:00am September 08, 2021

by Gabino Iglesias

More than an autobiography following a strict chronological path and detailing all major events, this book focuses on the role of art in the U.S. poet laureate's life and her development as an artist.

Hilma Wolitzer On Writing The Short Story That Helped Her Process Her Husband's Death

4:35pm September 07, 2021

NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks with Hilma Wolitzer about her collection of short stories, Today a Woman Went Mad in the Supermarket, which illuminates the complexity of motherhood and marriage.

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Arts

How A Cotton Sack, Passed Down Over Generations, Tells A Larger Story About Slavery

1:42pm September 07, 2021

by Arun Venugopal

In her new book, All That She Carried, historian Tiya Miles tells the story of an enslaved woman who, upon hearing her child was to be sold off, hastily packed her a bag with a few personal items.

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Joy Harjo's memoir is Poet Warrior. She plays saxophone and recites poetry on her new album, I Pray for My Enemies.

'Poet Warrior' Joy Harjo Wants Native Peoples To Be Seen As Human

12:46pm September 07, 2021

by Terry Gross

The nation's first Native American poet laureate has a new memoir in which she tells her own story — as well as the story of her sixth-generation grandfather, who was forced from his ancestral land.

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Into the Forest: A Holocaust Story of Survival, Triumph, and Love, by Rebecca Frankel

'Into The Forest' Tells Story Of One Family's Escape From Nazi-Created Zhetel Ghetto

7:46am September 07, 2021

by J.P. O'Malley

While the story of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising is well-documented, pockets of Jewish resistance surfaced in smaller ghettos across Nazi-occupied central-eastern Europe too. Zhetel is one such place.

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Arts

Nothing Is Going To Be OK In This Wrenching, Beautiful Story Collection

7:00am September 07, 2021

by Michael Schaub

Ye Chun's new story collection Hao takes its name from a Chinese word meaning "good," or "everything's OK" — but the characters in these stories are sick, afraid, out of time, and anything but OK.