Books

Emily Rapp is also the author of Poster Child, about a congenital birth defect that led to the amputation of her leg when she was a child, and about how she subsequently became a poster child for the March of Dimes.

'Still Point': A Meditation On Mothering A Dying Child

1:26pm March 18, 2013

In 2011, Emily Rapp's baby was diagnosed with Tay-Sachs disease, a genetic, degenerative condition with no cure. He died just shy of his third birthday. In her new memoir, The Still Point of the Turning World, Rapp writes about what it's like to care for a terminally ill child.

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Books
Arts

Famine Ship Jeanie Johnston Sailed Through Grim Odds

7:48pm March 17, 2013

by NPR Staff

In the mid-19th century, more than a million Irish fled the potato famine in search of a better life. But the fate they met aboard so-called "coffin ships" headed to the New World was often as bad as what they left behind. Not so for those lucky enough to find their way onto one ship. Kathryn Miles tells the story in her book, All Standing.

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'Bones' Inspires A New Generation Of Crime Fighters

1:03pm March 15, 2013

Kathy Reichs, the writer and scientist behind the TV show Bones, is back with a new novel for young adults. Code: A Virals Novel stars Tory Brennan, great-niece of Reich's famed crime-solving heroine Tempe Brennan. Reichs discusses the book, co-written with Brendan Reichs.

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'Bankers' New Clothes' Leave Too Little Skin In The Game

6:50am March 15, 2013

by NPR Staff

Anat Admati, finance professor at Stanford and co-author of a new book on American banks, argues that banks carry too much debt and have too little equity. Government support allows them to hide their risky behavior, distorting the economy as a whole, she says.

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Claire Vaye Watkins' debut collection of short stories — Battleborn — is informed by her childhood in the West.

Books
Arts

Two Awards In One Day For 'Battleborn' Author Claire Vaye Watkins

4:19pm March 14, 2013

On Wednesday, it was announced that the 28-year-old fiction writer had won the Story Prize as well as the Rosenthal Family Foundation Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Her debut story collection explores the landscape, people and history of the American West.

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Jake Tapper Takes A Host Chair At CNN

3:24pm March 14, 2013

The veteran reporter has recently moved from ABC News to CNN where he now hosts his own show and serves as Chief Washington Correspondent. In Part II of this interview, Tapper talks about fact-checking the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and blow back from the White House after asking tough questions.

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Water pouring from a bottle into a glass.

Books
Arts

A Young Man Gets 'Filthy Rich' Boiling, Bottling Tap Water

1:16pm March 13, 2013

Mohsin Hamid's How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia explores life in the modern megalopolis and the growing scarcity of clean water. In search of his fortune, Hamid's protagonist lands on a scam to boil and sell tap water as bottled mineral water in a novel that takes inspiration from self-help books.

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Remembering Aldo Leopold, Visionary Conservationist And Writer

10:13am March 13, 2013

by Jacki Lyden

Leopold's A Sand County Almanac was published in 1949. Decades after his death, his work is at the cutting edge of his field — and his words inspire a new generation of environmentalists.

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Books
Arts

'Lean In': Not Much Of A Manifesto, But Still A Win For Women

2:19pm March 12, 2013

by Maureen Corrigan

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg has drawn a lot of attention with her "sort of a feminist manifesto" Lean In. Critic Maureen Corrigan finds that much of the book is bland, but toward the end, Sandberg's intellectual charisma breaks through.

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'Frankenstein's Cat': Bioengineering The Animals Of The Future

1:52pm March 11, 2013

Science journalist Emily Anthes talks about how scientists are engineering mice with tumors and working to create pigs that can grow organs for human transplant and insects that could serve as drones for the military.

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