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Want To Start Reading Sci-Fi And Fantasy? Here's A Beginner's Guide
Benjamin Rondel/CULTURA/Science Source

Short Wave

Want To Start Reading Sci-Fi And Fantasy? Here's A Beginner's Guide

Today we're bringing you a beginner's guide to reading science fiction and fantasy from our friends at NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour and Life Kit.

Want To Start Reading Sci-Fi And Fantasy? Here's A Beginner's Guide

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A defense - and celebration - of all things 'Tacky'
Penguin Random House

NPR's Book of the Day

A defense - and celebration - of all things 'Tacky'

Do you love what some people would consider 'low-brow culture?' Things like The Cheesecake Factory or the band Creed. Well then do we have the book for you! Author Rax King has written a collection of essays that are kind of like love letters to the things that give her pleasure, including but not limited to The Jersey Shore, in Tacky. She told NPR's Sam Sanders she thinks a lot about who gets to be tacky and the value of art and entertainment that might fall into the category.

A defense - and celebration - of all things 'Tacky'

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'Sex Cult Nun' says discovering self-ownership helped her break free from The Family

Faith Jones is the granddaughter of David Berg, the founder of the Children of God cult. Jones lived as a member of the group until she was 23. Mariusz Jeglinski/HarperCollins hide caption

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Mariusz Jeglinski/HarperCollins

Author Interviews

'Sex Cult Nun' says discovering self-ownership helped her break free from The Family

Fresh Air

Faith Jones' grandfather founded the Children of God cult. She was taught sex was a service to God and that women should freely "share" their bodies, regardless of whether they wanted to or not.

'Sex Cult Nun' says discovering self-ownership helped her break free from The Family

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It's the shortest day of the year. Things can only get brighter from here

People walk their dogs along a narrow road as the first winter frost blankets the fields in Oudeland van Strijen in the Netherlands on Tuesday. It's the shortest day of the year and official start of winter. Jeffrey Groeneweg/ANP/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

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Jeffrey Groeneweg/ANP/AFP via Getty Images

Weather

It's the shortest day of the year. Things can only get brighter from here

Tuesday is the winter solstice in the Northern Hemisphere. That means from now till June, each day will be a little bit longer — and brighter. Here are some ways you can celebrate the season.

Keeping yourself afloat in 'Between Two Kingdoms'
Random House

NPR's Book of the Day

Keeping yourself afloat in 'Between Two Kingdoms'

When author Suleika Jaouad was first diagnosed with leukemia, she felt isolated and like she didn't have control over anything. She told Life Kit host Beck Harlan that creative practices, namely journaling, helped her regain a narrative control of her own life. Jaouad details that struggle and her coping mechanisms in her book, Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of Life Interrupted.

Keeping yourself afloat in 'Between Two Kingdoms'

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In 'Sea State,' life gets rocky when a journalist gets involved with her subject
Harper Collins

Review

Book Reviews

In 'Sea State,' life gets rocky when a journalist gets involved with her subject

Fresh Air

Tabitha Lasley spent six months in Aberdeen, Scotland, interviewing men who work on offshore oil rigs. Along the way, she had an all-consuming affair with one of the very first men she interviewed.

In 'Sea State,' life gets rocky when a journalist gets involved with her subject

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Reinventing the epic with 'The Love Songs of W.E.B Du Bois'
Harper Collins

NPR's Book of the Day

Reinventing the epic with 'The Love Songs of W.E.B Du Bois'

When you think of an epic, what comes to mind? The Iliad, The Odyssey, maybe Beowulf? Well author Honoree Fanonne Jeffers points out that epics are almost always about white men. She told former Morning Edition host Noel King that she didn't want to tell that story because that story has already been told...many times. So, Jeffers set out to write a different kind of epic about heroic Black women in The Love Songs of W.E.B Du Bois.

Reinventing the epic with 'The Love Songs of W.E.B Du Bois'

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Children's artist Jazzy Ash wraps up a busy year with new Christmas songs

Ashli St. Armant, a.k.a. Jazzy Ash Courtesy of Mayers Consulting hide caption

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Courtesy of Mayers Consulting

Arts & Life

Children's artist Jazzy Ash wraps up a busy year with new Christmas songs

Ashli St. Armant plays funky New Orleans-style fare for kids with her band, Jazzy Ash and the Leaping Lizards, and spins mysterious tales in her Viva Durant audiobook series.

Children's artist Jazzy Ash wraps up a busy year with new Christmas songs

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2021 was rough, but books about love gave us life. Here are 13 recommendations
Noa Denmon for NPR

Arts & Life

2021 was rough, but books about love gave us life. Here are 13 recommendations

Books We Love, formerly known as NPR's Book Concierge, is back for 2021. Here are a handful of books about love that NPR staffers and independent critics named as some of their favorites of the year.

2021 was rough, but books about love gave us life. Here are 13 recommendations

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In 'The Sour Cherry Tree,' a child keeps memories of her late grandfather close
Owlkids Books

Picture This

In 'The Sour Cherry Tree,' a child keeps memories of her late grandfather close

The day after her beloved Baba Bazorg dies, a little girl remembers some of her favorite things about him: his striped slippers, the mints in his pockets and the fig cookies he always shared.

In 'The Sour Cherry Tree,' a child keeps memories of her late grandfather close

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NPR's Throughline: The Postal Service
Penguin Random House

NPR's Book of the Day

NPR's Throughline: The Postal Service

The US Postal Service has played a key role in much of American history - from the Declaration of Independence to more recent mail-in voting. It was conceived of by the founders as the way to create a united, informed and effective American democracy. But today, the postal service's future is in danger. Winifred Gallagher spoke to NPR's Rund Abdelfatah about how the postal service created the United States and the case for investing in this pivotal institution.

NPR's Throughline: The Postal Service

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Danielle Evans and Brit Bennett on the lies we tell ourselves
Penguin Random House/Riverhead Books

NPR's Book of the Day

Danielle Evans and Brit Bennett on the lies we tell ourselves

Today, two takes on stories we tell to make ourselves feel better and the consequences of believing them. First, author Danielle Evans' short story collection, The Office of Historical Corrections. The title story is about a fictional agency that fact checks in real time but, as she told former NPR host Noel King, it's less powerful than you might think. Then, the story of a Black woman's decision to pass as white and the decades-long fallout of that choice, in The Vanishing Half. Author Brit Bennett told NPR's Mary Louise Kelly that the point of the story isn't to moralize.

Danielle Evans and Brit Bennett on the lies we tell ourselves

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'Empire of Pain' explores the family behind Purdue Pharma
Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group

NPR's Book of the Day

'Empire of Pain' explores the family behind Purdue Pharma

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is the most recent public institution to announce that they are taking the Sackler name off of seven of their spaces due to their involvement with the opioid crisis. Author Patrick Radden Keefe wrote a book profiling the Sackler family called Empire of Pain: The Secret History Of The Sackler Dynasty that was one of the biggest of the year. It profiles the family that founded Purdue Pharma and their promotion of the drug Oxycontin.

'Empire of Pain' explores the family behind Purdue Pharma

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