Last Chance To Submit For Round 10 Of Three-Minute Fiction
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Sunday, February 10, 2013
Author Interviews
Small Objects Reveal 'The Real Jane Austen'
February 10, 2013 In her new book, The Real Jane Austen: A Life in Small Things, author Paula Byrne shows how everyday objects helped shape Austen's life and literature. One example, a topaz cross, a cherished gift to Austen from her brother, plays an important role in Mansfield Park.
At 50, Does 'Feminine Mystique' Still Roar?
February 10, 2013 In 1963 Betty Friedan published a groundbreaking work that empowered a generation of women. With World War II over, women who had been working were told to find fulfillment at home. "The moment was so pregnant and ready for an explosion," says New York Times columnist Gail Collins.
Author Interviews
'House Girl' Ties Past To Present In Tale Of Art And Slavery
February 10, 2013 "Mister hit Josephine with the palm of his hand across her left cheek and it was then she knew she would run." So begins Tara Conklin's debut novel, The House Girl, which links the stories of an artistically talented 19th-century slave and an ambitious 21st-century lawyer.
You Must Read This
The Splendor Of Suffering In 'The Lonely Passion Of Judith Hearne'
February 10, 2013 Brian Moore's The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne, a book about an alcoholic looking for love, is the novel that author Ann Leary always turns to when she's depressed. What books do you read when you're sad? Tell us in the comments.
Saturday, February 09, 2013
Author Interviews
Manufactured On YouTube, Teen Pop Star Searches For His True Voice
February 9, 2013 The road tour is a well-known backdrop in American novels and one Teddy Wayne explores in his new novel, The Love Song of Jonny Valentine. Along the way, Jonny, a teen heartthrob, explores the pressures of celebrity at a young age.
Author Interviews
Second Chances Find 'Safe Haven' In Sparks' Latest Love Story
February 9, 2013 Nicholas Sparks is known for writing love stories, many of which have gone on to big-screen success. His latest, Safe Haven, is about a woman escaping her past in a small beach town in North Carolina.
Life, Love And Undeath In The 'Lemon Grove'
February 9, 2013 Swamplandia! author Karen Russell is back with a new collection of short stories, Vampires in the Lemon Grove. The title story features two elderly vampires, married for more than a century, who wonder what "till death do us part" means when you can't die.
Author Interviews
Healing 'Brick City': A Newark Doctor Returns Home
February 9, 2013 In a new memoir, Sampson Davis describes what it was like to return to the hospital where he was born to become an emergency physician. He says his mother taught him that "once you make it, you have to come back and help other people."
Literary Types Find Love In 'The New York Review Of Books'
February 9, 2013 The magazine is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. It's famous for its rigorous writing and ability to attract literary stars — but also for its quirky personal ads, where "squalid Sydney wombats" and "Antediluvian Mariners" seek "foxy cougars" and "street-credible jacobins."
Book Reviews
A Pale Imitation Of Magic In 'Scent Of Darkness'
February 9, 2013 Margot Berwin's new novel Scent of Darkness follows a young woman rendered irresistible by a magical perfume. Reviewer Mary Bly says the problem isn't the magical-realism aspects of the story, but the dull and complacent heroine.
Friday, February 08, 2013
Art & Design
Could Reclusive Designer Balenciaga Make It Today?
![Cristobal Balenciaga was known as a perfectionist, especially when it came to sleeves. Blume says, "It was perhaps a sign of real personal attention if you were one of the rare clients that he had lunch with, and at the end of the lunch he ripped out [your] sleeve and reset it."](http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2013/02/08/ap060705010548-517f5a3a1d9f7d659c3c656705ca57724ea67904-s1.jpg "Cristobal Balenciaga was known as a perfectionist, especially when it came to sleeves. Blume says, \"It was perhaps a sign of real personal attention if you were one of the rare clients that he had lunch with, and at the end of the lunch he ripped out [your] sleeve and reset it.\"")
February 8, 2013 In the '40s and '50s, Cristobal Balenciaga was an international fashion star — but a lot has changed since then. Fashion writer Robin Givhan says today's fashion world demands that designers "have the personality of a celebrity." That may not have gone over well with the secretive Spaniard.
Hardcover Fiction Bestsellers
NPR Bestsellers: Hardcover Fiction, Week Of February 7, 2013
February 8, 2013 Speaking From Among the Bones, Alan Bradley's fifth Flavia de Luce mystery, debuts at No. 6.
