NPR: Books Podcast

Stories in this episode: 1) 'Dying Up Here' Chronicles Golden Age Of Stand-Up 2) Doctorow's Fictional Take On Real-Life Eccentricity 3) 'Reading Rainbow' Reaches Its Final Chapter

Stories in this episode: 1) Ready to become engrossed in a good book? Try these mysteries you may have missed. 2) A new interactive novel allows readers to e-mail and telephone characters from the book. 3) Tina Brown, the Daily Beast editor talks about ...

Stories in this episode: 1) Lev Grossman's new novel reads like a Harry Potter tale, but with more shades of gray. 2) Children's book author Lesley Blume recommends timeless books that both kids and parents will enjoy. 3) Fancy a cozy whodunit set in the ...

1) David Balducci writes crime novels that take place in Washington, D.C.. 2) A writer for The Onion talks about his new memoir and how marrying his humor and his depression makes for an insane, dark comedy. 3) Crime writer Gabriel Cohen takes us on a ...

Stories in this episode: 1) Despite the economic downturn, one kind of story is still selling better than many other forms of adult fiction. 2) In a kind of supermarket Cinderella story, a cashier in France has become a literary sensation. 3) 'Young ...

Stories in this episode: 1) The murder of wildlife activist and filmmaker Joan Root was never solved, but her life and violent death is the subject of a new book, 'Wildflower: An Extraordinary Life and Untimely Death in Africa'. 2) Writer Neil Gaiman ...

Stories in this episode: 1) Author Colin Ellard says you can train yourself to be more conscious of your surroundings. 2) Author Jag Bhalla discusses the unique turns of phrase that different cultures use. 3) In a new book, Nick Reding describes why the ...

Stories in this episode: 1) 'Touch' tells of the conflicting accounts that arise after a girl is groped on a school bus. 2) Author Gigi Levangie Grazer talks about her new novel, 'Queen Takes King.' 3) 'The Photographer' is an unusual graphic novel that ...

Stories in this episode: 1) Retrace the strands that led to a lot of current American satire, and you end up at Harvey Kurtzman. 2) Nikita Khrushchev starred in his own travel comedy back in 1959. Peter Carlson's new book, 'K Blows Top,'documents the ...

Stories in this episode: 1) Filmmaker Guillermo del Toro's new novel merges vampire folklore with the very modern paranoia over pandemics. 2) Looking to cozy up with some good books? Librarian Nancy Pearl has some great suggestions. 3) A multivolume ...

Stories in this episode: 1) This year's selections take readers from the great outdoors to the inside of a Scrabble factory. 2) Google's new e-book plan could give the Amazon Kindle a run for its money by the end of this year. 3) Haunted by memories of ...

Stories in this episode: Reviewer Alan Cheuse and writer Samantha Hunt offer their suggestions of books for summer. 2) The Kasper Hauser group's 'Weddings of the Times' pokes fun at formal wedding announcements. 3) For the first time, David Kaczynski has ...

Stories in this episode: 1) As author Clinton Heylin explains, Shakespeare's sonnets were never intended for a wide audience. 2) Karl Taro Greenfeld describes growing up with his autistic brother in his book 'Boy Alone.' 3) For Jeffrey Eugenides, Saul ...

1) Vientiane, the capital city of Laos is the setting for Colin Cotterill's "Dr. Siri" mystery novels; 2) 2008 is the year of Richard Wright's centennial - Juan Williams speaks with Julia Wright, daughter of the author of "Black Boy" and "Native Son"; 3) ...

1) "The Obama Nation" by Jerome Corsi is hitting bookstore shelves and bestseller lists - despite factual inaccuracies; 2) A deeper look at the political "Swift-booking" industry; 3) In "Warrior Girls" Michael Sokolove explores the risk of injuries ...

1) Matt Beynon Rees sets his new mystery, "The Samaritan's Secret" in Nablus, in the occupied West Bank; 2) The owner of a bookstore in Decatur, Georgia is soliciting funds from customers to help pay bills; 3) Writers from Santa Cruz attempt to capture ...

1) Morning Edition's "Crime in the City" series goes to Glasgow, Scotland with the novelist Denise Mina, whose protagonist is the depressive Maureen O'Donnell; 2) "In Lincoln's Shadow" chronicles the race riots of Springfield, Illinois that erupted a ...

1) Russian author Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who won the Nobel prize for Literature in 1970, and wrote "The Gulag Archipelago" has died at the age of 89; 2) Virginia Woolf may have been accurately representing the the way the brain works in her novel ...

1) Librarians attending the "Comic-Con" convention looking for the latest Japanese manga to put on their shelves; 2) Sheryll Cashin writes her family's history of activism in "The Agitator's Daughter"; 3) Discarded Shopping lists are the inspiration for ...