Books

Jock Heidenstein. Anita Lasker. Chana Zumerkorn, Regina Feldman. These young women did not know each other. They never met—not before or after their respective experiences during the Holocaust. What connects their incredible stories? A red sweater. Lucy Adlington discusses her book Four Red Sweaters.

The Imagined Life is a novel about memory, music and longing—and about the bonds between a father and a son. Andrew Porter discusses his latest novel on the latest episode of Book Public.

Books "overtly promoting DEI, gender ideology, and critical race theory" are under new scrutiny following a memo issued by acting Assistant Secretary of the Army Derrick Anderson.

A giant of Latin American culture, Vargas Llosa used powerful imagery and sometimes fantastical storytelling to explore issues of male violence, societal disruption and authoritarian politics.

For author Lauren K. Watel, “potions” are part poem and part fiction. There are 75 prose-like vignettes with the density and intensity of poems in her "Book of Potions."

Great works of art are great, in part, because they continue to have something to say to the present: They're both timebound and timeless. And, boy, does Gatsby have something to say to us in 2025.

When we worry about the declining rates of literacy and a lack of reading skills, it's often about children. But how often are adults reading these days? And what are we reading? A new NPR/Ipsos poll finds out.

The novel is set in 2038 in Three Rivers, Texas. A corrupt industrialist is the mayor. Women are indentured laborers in a fish cannery. Reading books is against the law. Protagonist Neftalí is the last literate citizen of the town. What can she do to reclaim and help her city?

The novel is about race and class and about parents trying to raise their sons in our fraught times.

Acclaimed writer ZZ Packer joins Peter Orner and Yvette Benavides to discuss “Gold Coast” by James Alan McPherson.