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The Week's Best Stories From NPR Books
This week: Meg Wolitzer, Charles Frazier, Jo Nesbo, Nafissa Thompson-Spires and James Sexton.Free-range chickens stand in a pen at an organic-accredited poultry farm in Germany. Joern Pollex/Getty Images hide caption
Chicken Confidential: How This Bird Came To Rule The Cultural Roost
David Quammen's new book is an extended excerpt of his previous one, Spillover, which explored how dangerous pathogens jump from animals to people. Courtesy of David Quammen hide caption
Former President George W. Bush (right) and his father, former President George H.W. Bush, wave as they leave a family wedding in Washington, D.C., in May 2006. Normand Blouin-Pool/Getty Images hide caption
In Mallory Ortberg's modern retelling of Charles Dickens' Great Expectations, Miss Havisham texts wedding dress photos from a blocked number. Madeline Gobbo/Courtesy of Henry Holt & Company hide caption
If Literature's Great Characters Could Text, They'd Charm Your Pantalets Off
Philippe Petain, head of the French World War II collaborationist government in Vichy, greets French prisoners arriving from Germany in 1941. AP hide caption
A French Best-Seller's Radical Argument: Vichy Regime Wasn't All Bad
According to biographer Anthony Flint, Le Corbusier (seen here in an undated photo) once proposed razing Paris' historic Marais neighborhood in order to give the dilapidated district a fresh start. AP hide caption
Like It Or Not, Architect Le Corbusier's Urban Designs Are Everywhere
John Cleese got his first big break in London's West End and as a script writer and performer on The Frost Report. Andy Gotts/Courtesy of Crown Publishing hide caption
Professor and author Cornel West in 2008. Richard Alan Hannon/Getty Images hide caption
Amy Poehler plays Leslie Knope on Parks and Recreation, which will air its final season next year. Poehler says, "It's a privilege in television to be able to have a proper goodbye." Colleen Hayes/NBC hide caption
W.H. Auden at the 92nd Street Y Poetry Center in 1966. Diane Dorr-Dorynek/Courtesy of the 92nd Street Y hide caption