Former Marine Corps Lt. Col. Kate Germano worked to hold female recruits to tougher standards. Then, she says, she was fired for it. Courtesy of Ars Nova Images hide caption

The Week's Best Stories From NPR Books
This week: Meg Wolitzer, Charles Frazier, Jo Nesbo, Nafissa Thompson-Spires and James Sexton.Mindfulness gurus Geneen Roth and Ed Espe Brown have long championed the idea that how we relate to food affects other aspects of our lives. In new super-personal essay collections, they reassess their past self-help advice. Neil Webb/Getty Images/Ikon Images hide caption
Wade (Tye Sheridan) is the teen hero of Spielberg's latest big-budget action flick Ready Player One, based on the novel of the same name. Jaap Buitendijk/Warner Bros. hide caption
The life of musician Larry Norman, pictured left, is chronicled in Why Should the Devil Have All the Good Music?: Larry Norman and the Perils of Christian Rock Kristy Douglas/Courtesy of the Larry Norman Estate hide caption
The 'Father Of Christian Rock' Larry Norman's Battles With Evangelicalism
Poet Philip Levine (left) and saxophonist Benjamin Boone were both teaching at California State University, Fresno when they began working together on what would become The Poetry Of Jazz. Joe Osejo/Courtesy of the artist hide caption
'Like A Jazz Musician': Past Poet Laureate Philip Levine's Posthumous LP
Jennifer Palmieri waits for Hillary Clinton to speak during a rally in North Carolina in September, 2016. BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images hide caption
Von Diaz drew on her experiences in her grandmother's Puerto Rican kitchen and her Southeastern American roots to write her cookbook, Coconuts and Collards. Ella Colley /University Press of Florida hide caption
Puerto Rican Cooking And The American South Mix In 'Coconuts And Collards'
'The Merry Spinster' By Mallory Ortberg. Eslah Attar/NPR hide caption
In Daniel Mallory Ortberg's Version, The Little Mermaid Inhales Souls
Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch, a small-town lawyer who defends a black man accused of rape, in a scene from the 1962 film To Kill a Mockingbird, based on the novel by Harper Lee. Universal/AP hide caption
Author Alan Hollinghurst On Secret Affairs, Narrative Gaps And Writing Gay Sex
President Trump meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the G-20 Summit in Hamburg, Germany, last July. Evan Vucci/AP hide caption
'Russian Roulette' Authors Seek To Connect The Dots Between Trump And Putin
In Islandborn, Lola asks her grandmother what she remembers most about the Dominican Republic. Courtesy of Dial Books for Young Readers hide caption
In Junot Diaz's 'Islandborn,' A Curious Child Re-Creates Her Dominican Roots
'No Turning Back: Life, Loss, and Hope in Wartime Syria' By Rania Abouzeid. W. W. Norton & Company hide caption