NPR's Book of the Day
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NPR's Book of the Day
In need of a good read? Or just want to keep up with the books everyone's talking about? NPR's Book of the Day gives you today's very best writing in a snackable, skimmable, pocket-sized podcast. Whether you're looking to engage with the big questions of our times – or temporarily escape from them –...
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'Kin' and 'When Two Feathers Fell from the Sky' fictionalize the Jim Crow South
As we continue to celebrate the 250th birthday of the U.S., we’re revisiting author interviews on important books about American history. Today’s epis...
Eddie Glaude on the tension at the center of America's milestone birthdays
As we continue to celebrate the 250th birthday of the U.S., we’re revisiting author interviews on important books about American history. In Eddie Gla...
Revisiting the story of the American Revolution with Rick Atkinson
As we continue to celebrate the 250th birthday of the U.S., we’re revisiting author interviews on important books about American history. In today’s e...
'America's Founding Son' documents John Quincy Adams' influential post-presidency
As we continue to celebrate the 250th birthday of the U.S., we’re revisiting author interviews on important books about American history. Bob Crawford...
Norah O'Donnell’s 'We the Women' pays tribute to U.S. history's female heroes
As we continue to celebrate the 250th birthday of the U.S., we’re revisiting author interviews on important books that speak to American history. In t...
What to read this summer, according to our NPR colleagues
Summer can be a great time to catch up on reading. If you’re looking for recommendations, the NPR Books team is out with a list of some of our staff’s...
Judy Blume says she doesn't miss writing … but she’s very glad she wrote
Over 50 years, Judy Blume wrote an incomparable set of books for young readers, including Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret, Deenie, Tiger Eyes, T...
In 'Names Have Been Changed,' a criminal on the run confesses her story on a podcast
Ophir led an unremarkable life until her best friend pulled her into the scam. After 10 years on the run from the Singapore police, she’s assumed new...
A new book argues Elon Musk is the architect of a new world view
A new book argues that Elon Musk has an influence in the 21st century similar to what Henry Ford had in the 20th. He's not just a businessman, but the...
Tom Perrotta’s novel 'Ghost Town' revisits a New Jersey childhood from a bygone era
In Tom Perrotta’s new novel, a successful writer named Jimmy Perrini is invited to return to his hometown in suburban New Jersey. The invitation takes...
New biographies recount how The Rolling Stones and Soundgarden changed rock music
The Rolling Stones and Soundgarden are two of the most influential bands in the history of rock – and two new books tell their stories. The Rolling St...
Laverne Cox on her childhood, 'Walden' and her new memoir 'Transcendent'
Laverne Cox became a breakout TV star at 40 with a starring role in Orange Is the New Black. Since then, she’s become an advocate and role model for t...
In 'The Jellyfish Problem,' an introverted scientist is called in to help an island
Author Tessa Yang describes her The Jellyfish Problem protagonist as an "introverted, know-it-all dork." In the novel, Jo, a marine biologist, gets a...
Sen. Chris Murphy wants the left and right to fix the country’s 'spiritual rot'
Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut believes there is a “spiritual rot” festering in the country – and he wants the left and right to come tog...
In 'Contrapposto,' the meaning of love and the meaning of art go hand-in-hand
Novelist Dave Eggers (A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, The Circle) has a new novel out: Contrapposto. It’s a decade-spanning romance of sort...
Two romance books give opposite takes on love, relationships and the absence of both
In the new novel They All Fall in Love at the End, polyamory is the topic at hand — primarily what it offers the protagonist and how she navigates a w...
In 'Stolen Revolution,' six Iranians share perspectives on modern Iran and its future
How does a nationwide revolution affect the individual lives of its citizens? In the midst of the latest conflict in Iran, journalists Bozorgmehr Shar...
'The Yahoo Boys' investigates Nigeria’s network of cyber crime 'sweetheart scams'
In 2022, journalist Carlos Barragán moved to Lagos, Nigeria to investigate a cybercrime network of text-based internet phishing, also known as “sweeth...
R.F. Kuang says there’s 'quite a lot' of herself in 'Katabasis' protagonist Alice
R.F. Kuang’s fantasy novel Katabasis, first published in 2025, is out in paperback. The book is about two rival doctoral students studying magic at Ca...
Theo Baker delves into power and corruption at Stanford in 'How to Rule the World'
A few years ago, Theo Baker – then a student at Stanford University – joined the school newspaper and broke a story that forced the university preside...
Ann Patchett’s 'Whistler' and 'Tom Lake' are novels written with love in mind
Novelist Ann Patchett has written about things as wild as hostage takeovers, fairy tales, and betrayed magicians’ assistants. But her new novel Whistl...
'A Pair of Aces' is about two women who face down the mob in 1930s New York
Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray have just published new historical fiction. Their novel A Pair of Aces is about two women in 1930s New...
In 'Keeper of My Kin,' Ada Ferrer struggles with being her mother's "chosen one"
At the start of the Cuban Revolution, Adela Ferrer’s husband made an impossible decision. Her husband had fled Havana for New York, and she planned to...
Maggie O'Farrell's novel 'Land' takes readers to a famine-ravaged yet resilient Ireland
What happened to those who remained in Ireland after the Great Famine of 1865? It’s a question that fascinated Maggie O’Farrell, author of Hamnet, as...
In 'View From the East Wing,' Jill Biden reflects on the debate that changed history
The first and only 2024 Biden-Trump presidential debate was not a night easily forgotten. Joe Biden’s stumbling performance and Kamala Harris’ resulti...
Two new books ask: What would you do if you encountered alien life?
Today on the show: Fictional and nonfictional takes on extraterrestrial life. Steven Rowley’s new novel Take Me With You is about a man whose husband...
'Big Fan' investigates fandom from darts and football to Taylor Swift
Sportswriter Joe Posnanski and TV writer Michael Schur say their new book is for everyone who has risked their emotional health over a sports team. Bi...
Ben Crump says 'Worse Than a Lie' is a legal thriller wrapped in Black culture
In his debut novel, the civil rights attorney Ben Crump imagines a horrific crime that feels all too real. In Worse Than a Lie, a Black ex-police offi...
In 'Mother Tongue,' author Sara Nović examines deaf history, and writes her own
Acclaimed author Sara Nović lost her hearing at age 12. Since then, she’s learned ASL, written the best-selling novel True Biz, mothered two children,...
ABC News' Martha Raddatz on 'The Hero Next Door,' her collection of veterans’ stories
Martha Raddatz has reported on the U.S. military for more than 30 years. Now she’s out with a new book: The Hero Next Door: Stories of Patriotism and...
Two new books about writing break down the creative process
Writing is hard. So is writing about writing. And, sometimes, reading about writing. But today, we have two books that attempt to break down the liter...
In 'The Foursome,' conjoined twins marry two sisters — and that’s just the beginning
In 1839, conjoined twins and famous showmen Chang and Eng Bunker — native to Thailand, then called Siam — took a break from touring, settled in North...
'Cherry Baby' holds a mirror to its main character - and to the GLP-1 industry itself
Cherry Baby is a novel of perceptions. Cherry thought life couldn’t get worse when her ex-husband turned her into a caricature for his popular comic s...
'Here Where We Live Is Our Country' chronicles the history of the Jewish Labor Bund
The history of Jewish revolutionary groups is fraught with complexity, violence and surprise — as author Molly Crabapple discovered when she traveled...
'A Perfect Hand' is a romp through 19th-century England, with a suffragist twist
A Perfect Hand has all the ingredients of a charming Victorian romance novel: a scheming matchmaker plot, an upstairs-downstairs dynamic, and a hefty...
Two new murder mysteries cleverly explore the meta — in two very different ways
In Ilona Bannister’s Five, five strangers wait on a train platform. One will die in the next five minutes but only one person knows: the reader. In An...
In 'Backtalker,' Kimberlé Crenshaw turns from political theory to personal memoir
Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw is a foundational legal scholar, theorist, and Civil Rights advocate, known for coining such significant and controversial...
In 'Homebound,' an epic journey through multiverses begins with a single video game
Becks is a queer teenager in the 1980s struggling to find a sense of belonging. When she picks up an unfinished coding project left behind by her belo...
'The People Can Fly' examines the history of Black prodigies from poets to professors
What does it truly mean to be a “prodigy?” For the poet, professor and author of The People Can Fly Joshua Bennett, the answer is complicated. But may...
Revisiting 'Whalefall,' the underwater thriller from Pulitzer winner Daniel Kraus
Time is running out for 17-year-old Jay Gardiner: He’s trapped underwater in the body of a sperm whale with just one hour of oxygen left. This not-so-...