Books

Books
Arts

Art Spiegelman Reflects On 60 Years Of Pen And Ink

11:28am September 14, 2013

by NPR Staff

Art Spiegelman's new book, Co-Mix: A Retrospective of Comics, Graphics, and Scraps, collects comics from a six-decade career, from his early, self-published works to his famous New Yorker covers. Spiegelman tells NPR's Scott Simon he knew in third grade that he wanted to be a cartoonist.

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In These 'Gardens,' The Tree Rings Of The Radical Left

5:48pm September 12, 2013

by Mohsin Hamid

Jonathan Lethem's Dissident Gardens sketches a history of the American left that is at once intimate and expansive. Out of the lives of a few conflicted characters, reviewer Mohsin Hamid explains, the book lends depth and emotion to events that affected millions.

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Economist Tyler Cowen believes that income inequality in America is only increasing. His new book is called Average Is Over: Powering America Beyond the Age of the Great Stagnation.

Tired Of Inequality? One Economist Says It'll Only Get Worse

9:57am September 12, 2013

by NPR Staff

In his new book, Average Is Over, Tyler Cowen predicts that America will become a new, more creative meritocracy. Though he believes a rise in income inequality is inevitable, he hopes that "happiness inequality isn't going up in the same way."

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An Alternate Universe Delights In Complex, Perplexing 'Duplex'

5:22pm September 10, 2013

by Rosecrans Baldwin

Books about quantum mechanics can be pretty dry stuff. But when a novelist conjures up multiple worlds, the results can be spellbinding, even when it's no easy read. Such is the case with Duplex, the latest book from Kathryn Davis. Reviewer Rosecrans Baldwin, says this one's worth the effort.

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Woodrow Wilson Brought New Executive Style To The White House

4:41pm September 10, 2013

No. 28 was the first president to team up with America's legislative branch, and he used a groundbreaking moral argument to get the U.S. involved in World War I. A. Scott Berg's new book, Wilson, fills in missing pieces of the president's life.

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Sheri Fink's first book, War Hospital: A True Story of Surgery and Survival, followed medical professionals under siege during the genocide in Srebrenica, Bosnia-Herzegovina.

During Katrina, 'Memorial' Doctors Chose Who Lived, Who Died

7:08am September 10, 2013

With waters rising and their hospital on the verge of losing power, Memorial Medical Center staff were faced with an ethical question: Who to save first? Sheri Fink reconstructs their decisions — from hastening patients' deaths to evacuating the sickest last — in Five Days at Memorial.

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Jonathan Lethem's other books include The Ecstasy of Influence, Chronic City and Girl in Landscape.

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For Novelist Jonathan Lethem, Radicalism Runs In The Family

3:01pm September 09, 2013

His new book, Dissident Gardens, follows three generations of an activist family, from Rose, a secular Jew and communist, to Sergius, her commune-raised grandson. The book is fiction, but its characters were inspired by Lethem's own family story.

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An aerial view of Memorial Medical Center surrounded by floodwaters on Sept. 9, 2005.

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'Five Days' Of Ambiguous Morality At Katrina-Hit Hospital

6:26pm September 08, 2013

by Susan Jane Gilman

Sheri Fink's Five Days At Memorial, describes the horrific conditions at a New Orleans hospital shortly after Hurricane Katrina. Facing floodwaters and corporate mismanagement, some staffers euthanized sick patients. Fink's judgment of those actions is admirably — and frustratingly — nuanced.

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'Be Mine': Love And Identity Tangled In Tehran

5:33pm September 07, 2013

by NPR Staff

In her debut novel, Iranian-American Sara Farizan tells the story of two teenage girls, secretly in love. Sahar faces a crisis when she discovers Nasrin is engaged, and considers gender-reassignment surgery as a way for them to stay together. Farizan speaks with NPR's Jacki Lyden about the book and her own struggle with her sexual orientation.

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Jesse Walker is a senior editor at Reason magazine.

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Suspicious? In 'United States Of Paranoia,' It's Not Just You

1:01pm September 07, 2013

by NPR Staff

Author Jesse Walker argues that believing in shadowy cabals and ominous secrets isn't just for people on the margins — it's as American as apple pie. He says that our nation's paranoia stretches back to the colonial era, and that some conspiracy theories are believed by a majority of Americans.

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