Books

Books
Arts

'The Last Fire Season' describes what it was like to live through Calif.'s wildfires

8:18am January 18, 2024

by Kristen Martin

Recounting months spent dodging wildfires, writer Manjula Martin considers what it means to create a home in a place that is destined to burn, and to live "inside a damaged body on a damaged planet."

"The act of choosing a piece of culture to consume is a really powerful one," says writer Kyle Chayka. He's the author of Filterworld: How Algorithms Flattened Culture.

Books
Arts

How social media algorithms 'flatten' our culture by making decisions for us

7:31pm January 17, 2024

by Tonya Mosley

Filterworld author Kyle Chayka examines the algorithms that dictate what we watch, read and listen to. He argues that machine-guided curation makes us docile consumers.

Queue Listen Now

Books
Arts

'You Only Call When You're in Trouble' is a witty novel to get you through the winter

1:36pm January 17, 2024

by Maureen Corrigan

Stephen McCauley's comic novel offers readers the gift of laughter as well as a more expansive image of what family can be. Book critic Maureen Corrigan says it was a perfect January read.

Queue Listen Now

Books
Arts

In 'Filterworld,' only you can save yourself from bad taste

3:59pm January 16, 2024

by Clare Lombardo

Kyle Chayka's newest book explores how online algorithms have shaped modern culture, and what we can do about it.

American cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead sits for an interview in 1952.

Books
Arts

How Margaret Mead's research into utopias helped usher in the psychedelic era

2:28pm January 16, 2024

by Terry Gross

In Tripping on Utopia, historian Benjamin Breen writes about Mead's early research into psychedelic substances — and how it led to secret CIA experiments using psychedelics for interrogation.

Queue Listen Now

Hisham Matar tells a story of friendship and revolution in new novel, 'My Friends'

5:58pm January 15, 2024

by Bilal Qureshi

British Libyan writer Hisham Matar returns with a story of friendship and revolution called My Friends, a meditation on how political upheaval shapes the most intimate and private relationships.

The 15-year-old granddaughter of MLK Jr. wants to start a revolution around service

5:18pm January 15, 2024

NPR's Andrew Limbong speaks with Yolanda Renee King, granddaughter of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Coretta Scott King, about her new children's book, We Dream A World.

Queue Listen Now

Muhammad Zaman, author of the book We Wait for a Miracle, in his lab at Boston University.

Q&A: Author Muhammad Zaman on why health care is an impossible dream for 'unpersons'

10:12am January 15, 2024

In his new book, We Wait for a Miracle, Zaman tells how about the struggle for health care by forcibly displaced people — refugees, the internally displaced, the stateless.

Books

Michele Norris shows how brevity conveys powerful truths about Americans' identities

5:10am January 15, 2024

The Race Card Project invited people to tell stories about race in six words. Many are in Michele Norris' book: Our Hidden Conversations: What Americans Really Think About Race and Identity.

Books

Jenny Kiefer on her new horror novel 'This Wretched Valley'

9:25am January 14, 2024

NPR's Ayesha Rascoe speaks to author Jenny Kiefer about her new horror novel, "This Wretched Valley."

Queue Listen Now