Accessibility links
Books: Book Reviews, Book News, and Author Interviews NPR's brings you news about books and authors along with our picks for great reads. Interviews, reviews, and much more.

Books

These NYC kids have written the history of an overlooked Black female composer

Three of the student authors of Who Is Florence Price? (left to right: Sebastián Núñez, Hazel Peebles and Sophia Shao), joined by their English teacher, Shannon Potts. Courtesy of Special Music School hide caption

toggle caption
Courtesy of Special Music School

Music

These NYC kids have written the history of an overlooked Black female composer

A group of sixth, seventh and eighth grade students realized there was no children's book about the composer Florence Price. So they wrote, illustrated and published their own.

NPR's Short Wave: 'An Outsider's Guide to Humans'
Penguin Random House

NPR's Book of the Day

NPR's Short Wave: 'An Outsider's Guide to Humans'

Camilla Pang talks with NPR's Short Wave host Emily Kwong about her award-winning memoir, An Outsider's Guide to Humans: What Science Taught Me About What We Do And Who We Are. Diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder at age 8, the scientist and writer pairs her favorite scientific principles with human behavior and navigating daily life.

NPR's Short Wave: 'An Outsider's Guide to Humans'

  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1058306967/1060184013" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
'All That She Carried' weaves together generations of Black women
Penguin Random House

NPR's Book of the Day

'All That She Carried' weaves together generations of Black women

All That She Carried is the history of a single bag. Historian and author Tiya Miles used what few historical records she could find to tell the stories of three generations of Black women with ties to that sack dating back to 1850. Miles' journey started because of a simple message embroidered on the bag by one of its owners, Ruth Middleton. She told Here & Now's Scott Tong that people have emotional reactions to seeing the sack, because it means the families survived to pass it down to future generations.

'All That She Carried' weaves together generations of Black women

Listen · 11:02
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1058305839/1060181096" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
Using Math To Rethink Gender (encore)

Mathematician Eugenia Cheng's book X+Y: A Mathematician's Manifesto for Rethinking Gender uses category theory, her field of research, to re-examine the role of gender in society. Basic Books hide caption

toggle caption
Basic Books

Short Wave

Using Math To Rethink Gender (encore)

Gender is infused in many aspects of our world — but should that be the case?

Using Math To Rethink Gender (encore)

Listen · 13:56
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1060042060/1060054553" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
Alice Sebold apologizes to the man exonerated in the rape that her memoir focused on

The Lovely Bones author Alice Sebold said in her statement, "I will continue to struggle with the role that I unwittingly played within a system that sent an innocent man to jail." TINA FINEBERG/ASSOCIATED PRESS hide caption

toggle caption
TINA FINEBERG/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Arts & Life

Alice Sebold apologizes to the man exonerated in the rape that her memoir focused on

"I am sorry most of all for the fact that the life you could have led was unjustly robbed from you," the author wrote in a statement. A judge exonerated Anthony Broadwater of the crime last week.

Famed author Jodi Picoult novelizes the pandemic in new book 'Wish You Were Here'

Wish You Were Here, by Jodi Picoult Ballantine Books hide caption

toggle caption
Ballantine Books

Famed author Jodi Picoult novelizes the pandemic in new book 'Wish You Were Here'

Picoult's pandemic-inspired story focusing on a character stranded in the Galápagos Islands highlights how events can change us — and offer perspective.

Famed author Jodi Picoult novelizes the pandemic in new book 'Wish You Were Here'

Listen · 6:12
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1060015365/1060023300" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
'From Staircase to Stage': Raekwon on growing up in N.Y. and the Wu-Tang Clan

Steve Inskeep spoke to Raekwon about the new book, the difficulties of his upbringing and the trappings of success. Sebastian Duncan/Courtesy of the artist hide caption

toggle caption
Sebastian Duncan/Courtesy of the artist

Music Interviews

'From Staircase to Stage': Raekwon on growing up in N.Y. and the Wu-Tang Clan

In his new memoir, From Staircase to Stage, rapper Raekwon recalls watching as that relatively serene New York City neighborhood rapidly declined, succumbing to the wildfires of the crack epidemic.

'From Staircase to Stage': Raekwon on growing up in N.Y. and the Wu-Tang Clan

Listen · 7:12
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1059876175/1060004181" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
  • Transcript
'Chouette' is part owl part human baby. Fine. But how to raise her?
Harper Collins

NPR's Book of the Day

'Chouette' is part owl part human baby. Fine. But how to raise her?

Claire Oshetsky's new novel Chouette is... pretty strange, but also kind of wonderful? Oshetsky says the story is a parable about motherhood, in which a woman gives birth to an owl baby. The mother finds this strange not because the baby is an owl, but because she only had intercourse with the owl parent in a dream, and that owl was a woman. Still with us? Good. Oshetsky talked with NPR's Danielle Kurtzleben about how her own daughter consulted on writing the book, and what she learned from raising an autistic child.

'Chouette' is part owl part human baby. Fine. But how to raise her?

Listen · 9:26
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1058302815/1058981689" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
Mario Vargas Llosa explores 1954 Guatemalan coup in new novel

Harsh Times: A Novel, by Mario Vargas Llosa Farrar, Straus and Giroux hide caption

toggle caption
Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Author Interviews

Mario Vargas Llosa explores 1954 Guatemalan coup in new novel

Harsh Times, set in the 1950s, is historical fiction centering on events of a CIA-backed coup to overthrow Guatemala's democratically-elected government led by Jacobo Árbenz.

Mario Vargas Llosa explores 1954 Guatemalan coup in new novel

Listen · 5:01
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1058047557/1059746021" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
'Black Food' is more than just recipes, it's the stories behind them
Penguin Random House

NPR's Book of the Day

'Black Food' is more than just recipes, it's the stories behind them

Cookbook author and chef Bryant Terry edited and curated the new book, Black Food: Stories, Art, and Recipes From Across The African Diaspora. His goal was to preserve Black American recipes and their complex stories, but he uses more than just food to tell those stories. The book is also full of essays, art and music. Terry told Here And Now's Scott Tong that the cookbook is a "communal shrine to the shared culinary histories of the African Diaspora."

'Black Food' is more than just recipes, it's the stories behind them

Listen · 12:15
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1058297037/1058979022" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
Celebrating NPR's Petra Mayer with three literary things she loved
Darian Woehr/NPR

NPR's Book of the Day

Celebrating NPR's Petra Mayer with three literary things she loved

Our beloved friend and colleague Petra Mayer died suddenly a few weeks ago. This episode is for her. First, a conversation with NPR's Scott Simon and Sir Andrew Motion on The Folio Book of War Poetry, edited by Motion. Among her many nerdy interests, Petra was a self avowed "WWI poetry dork." The poetry is dark and moving, conveying universal feelings around loss. Then, a few quintessentially "Petra" pieces that capture her work and who she was. A conversation with romance author Beverly Jenkins and Petra talking about one of her favorite comfort reads, The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison.

Celebrating NPR's Petra Mayer with three literary things she loved

Listen · 15:08
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1057274307/1057316897" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
Tommy Orange is here to hold the door open for future Indigenous writers
Penguin Random House

NPR's Book of the Day

Tommy Orange is here to hold the door open for future Indigenous writers

This Thanksgiving, we're bringing you an author whose narrative likely runs counter to what you learned in school. Tommy Orange's novel, There There, is a brutal, remarkable, and necessary Native history. It's also a story of the shameful way America still treats its Native people. Orange was not comfortable with his new rising fame back in 2018. But he told NPR's Lynn Neary it was important to him to pave the way, spotlight and all, for young Indigenous writers.

Tommy Orange is here to hold the door open for future Indigenous writers

Listen · 8:13
  • Download
  • <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/1057029733/1057315023" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
Browse archive or search npr.org