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Knopf

'A Dangerous Business' is an entertaining, Poe-inspired murder mystery

December 7, 2022 • In Jane Smiley's latest novel, inspired by Edgar Allan Poe's "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," characters Eliza and Jean are determined to figure out who killed their missing colleagues.

Chelsea Conrad

Pop Culture Happy Hour

2022 Books We Love: Staff Picks

December 6, 2022 • Books We Love is a yearly labor of love here at NPR. Every year, the Books We Love team solicits recommendations from NPR staff and book critics and culls through them, creating an interactive reading guide you can use to find the perfect book for you or someone you love. Today, we're talking staff picks.

2022 Books We Love: Staff Picks

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What's the secret sauce that lets some poor countries prosper?

Before COVID, business in Beijing was booming. Dercon says one of the reasons state-led development in China has been so successful is because the country had a strong state to begin with. Bloomberg via Getty Images hide caption

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Bloomberg via Getty Images

Goats and Soda

What's the secret sauce that lets some poor countries prosper?

December 5, 2022 • In his new book, Gambling on Development, economist Stefan Dercon argues that the key to a low-resource country's success is not what you might think.

14 celebrity memoirs spilling all the tea

Various

Book News & Features

14 celebrity memoirs spilling all the tea

December 3, 2022 • It's been a busy season for celebrity memoirs. A-listers from the worlds of Hollywood, music, journalism and royalty dish their own stories in these recent and upcoming books.

NPR

Maureen Corrigan's favorite books of the year: 10 disparate reads for a hectic 2022

Fresh Air

November 30, 2022 • Some years, this annual book list falls into a pattern: like stand-out memoirs or dystopian fiction. But 2022 could not be contained, and these titles sprawl all over the place in subject and form.

Maureen Corrigan's favorite books of the year: 10 disparate reads for a hectic 2022

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Meghan Collins Sullivan/NPR

A visual feast: 6 favorite coffee table and gift books of 2022

November 26, 2022 • This year's selection of visual delights highlights the work of artists and designers who have made an enduring impact, including Lucian Freud, Elsa Schiaparelli and Patti Smith.

NPR

Books

Here are the Books We Love: 400+ great 2022 reads recommended by NPR

November 22, 2022 • Books We Love returns with 400+ new titles handpicked by NPR staff and trusted critics. Find 10 years of recommendations all in one place – that's more than 3,200 great reads.

Europa Editions

'Ghost Town' blurs the line between the living and the dead in rural Taiwan

November 13, 2022 • Multigenerational family sagas don't get more intense and operatic than Ghost Town. The heart of Kevin Chen's novel is the coming of age of Keith, a gay man from a conservative town, and his family.

Meghan Collins Sullivan/NPR

Women's work is never done: a trio of art books showcasing women

November 12, 2022 • Three new art books feature female subjects of every shape and hue from all over the world, doing the things that women have historically done — and also the things that men have historically done.

Algonquin Books

'Fatty Fatty Boom Boom' details podcaster's battle with weight

November 9, 2022 • Atypical of inspirational weight-loss books, Fatty Fatty Boom Boom by Rabia Chaudry — an advocate of Serial podcast subject Adnan Syed — is a love letter to the author's native cuisine.

Flatiron Books

'White Horse' is about supernatural horrors — and everyday horrors

November 4, 2022 • Erika T. Wurth's novel belongs to a new wave of horror fiction that delivers the creepiness and darkness readers have always associated with the genre, while also packing plenty of social commentary.

10 books to read to learn about women's plight in Iran

Meghan Collins Sullivan/NPR

Book News & Features

10 books to read to learn about women's plight in Iran

November 3, 2022 • The latest uprising in Iran is about much more than mandatory hijab. We've complied a list of books that offer insight into the lives of Iranian women and what is happening in their country.

Author reminds Americans that Samuel Adams was a revolutionary before he was a beer

The statue of Samuel Adams stands outside Boston's Faneuil Hall. Charles Krupa/AP hide caption

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Charles Krupa/AP

Author reminds Americans that Samuel Adams was a revolutionary before he was a beer

Fresh Air

November 1, 2022 • Adams' historical importance is often overlooked because he didn't keep copies of his own letters. Stacy Schiff's superb new biography explores his crucial role in inciting the American Revolution.

Author reminds Americans that Samuel Adams was a revolutionary before he was a beer

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Grover Press

With 'Foster,' Claire Keegan asks that readers look outward

November 1, 2022 • More than most books four times its size, Foster does several of the things we ask of great literature: It expands our world, diverting our attention outward, and it opens up our hearts and minds.

Meghan Collins Sullivan/NPR

3 books in translation that ask a lot — and allow the reader to ask a lot in return

October 26, 2022 • Concerning My Daughter, Hugs and Cuddles and Freeway: La Movie do not pretend to be easy reads, yet they are all completely consuming.

Meghan Collins Sullivan/NPR

Cormac McCarthy's new books seem to try to encapsulate the human experience

October 25, 2022 • The Passenger and Stella Maris -- the author's first two books in more than a decade — seem to want to decode the meaning of life, both as standalone novels and together as intertwined works.

Penguin Random House

A canine psychologist with a new puppy explores 'how dogs become themselves'

Fresh Air

October 24, 2022 • Alexandra Horowitz is an authority on how dogs perceive the world, but her new book is not a training manual. In The Year of the Puppy, she says there's plenty she doesn't know about canine cognition.

A canine psychologist with a new puppy explores 'how dogs become themselves'

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