Books

Books
Arts

Famine Ship Jeanie Johnston Sailed Through Grim Odds

7:48pm March 17, 2013

by NPR Staff

In the mid-19th century, more than a million Irish fled the potato famine in search of a better life. But the fate they met aboard so-called "coffin ships" headed to the New World was often as bad as what they left behind. Not so for those lucky enough to find their way onto one ship. Kathryn Miles tells the story in her book, All Standing.

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'Bones' Inspires A New Generation Of Crime Fighters

1:03pm March 15, 2013

Kathy Reichs, the writer and scientist behind the TV show Bones, is back with a new novel for young adults. Code: A Virals Novel stars Tory Brennan, great-niece of Reich's famed crime-solving heroine Tempe Brennan. Reichs discusses the book, co-written with Brendan Reichs.

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'Bankers' New Clothes' Leave Too Little Skin In The Game

6:50am March 15, 2013

by NPR Staff

Anat Admati, finance professor at Stanford and co-author of a new book on American banks, argues that banks carry too much debt and have too little equity. Government support allows them to hide their risky behavior, distorting the economy as a whole, she says.

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Claire Vaye Watkins' debut collection of short stories — Battleborn — is informed by her childhood in the West.

Books
Arts

Two Awards In One Day For 'Battleborn' Author Claire Vaye Watkins

4:19pm March 14, 2013

On Wednesday, it was announced that the 28-year-old fiction writer had won the Story Prize as well as the Rosenthal Family Foundation Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Her debut story collection explores the landscape, people and history of the American West.

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Jake Tapper Takes A Host Chair At CNN

3:24pm March 14, 2013

The veteran reporter has recently moved from ABC News to CNN where he now hosts his own show and serves as Chief Washington Correspondent. In Part II of this interview, Tapper talks about fact-checking the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and blow back from the White House after asking tough questions.

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Water pouring from a bottle into a glass.

Books
Arts

A Young Man Gets 'Filthy Rich' Boiling, Bottling Tap Water

1:16pm March 13, 2013

Mohsin Hamid's How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia explores life in the modern megalopolis and the growing scarcity of clean water. In search of his fortune, Hamid's protagonist lands on a scam to boil and sell tap water as bottled mineral water in a novel that takes inspiration from self-help books.

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Remembering Aldo Leopold, Visionary Conservationist And Writer

10:13am March 13, 2013

by Jacki Lyden

Leopold's A Sand County Almanac was published in 1949. Decades after his death, his work is at the cutting edge of his field — and his words inspire a new generation of environmentalists.

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Arts

'Lean In': Not Much Of A Manifesto, But Still A Win For Women

2:19pm March 12, 2013

by Maureen Corrigan

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg has drawn a lot of attention with her "sort of a feminist manifesto" Lean In. Critic Maureen Corrigan finds that much of the book is bland, but toward the end, Sandberg's intellectual charisma breaks through.

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'Frankenstein's Cat': Bioengineering The Animals Of The Future

1:52pm March 11, 2013

Science journalist Emily Anthes talks about how scientists are engineering mice with tumors and working to create pigs that can grow organs for human transplant and insects that could serve as drones for the military.

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Books
Arts

A Twin Carries On Alone In 'Her: A Memoir'

5:01pm March 10, 2013

by NPR Staff

Christa Parravani tells the story of her identical twin, Cara, whose brutal rape led to a heroin addiction and eventually her death at the age of 28.

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