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A Dangerous Trip Into The 'Spill Zone:' Questions For Scott Westerfeld

10:00am May 02, 2017

by Petra Mayer

Scott Westerfeld's new graphic novel was inspired by photos of Chernobyl; it's the story of two sisters living on the outskirts of Poughkeepsie, N.Y. after a mysterious incident destroys the city.

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Eerie 'Fen' Is Full Of Dazzling, Hard-To-Explain Stories

7:12am May 02, 2017

by Michael Schaub

Daisy Johnson's story collection is set in the marshlands of eastern England — now mostly, catastrophically drained. It's beautifully creepy, hard to explain but easy to read over and over again.

Ian McShane as Mr. Wednesday and Ricky Whittle as Shadow Moon hit the road in the new Starz adaptation of Neil Gaiman's American Gods.

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In 'American Gods,' Even Deities Have The Immigrant Experience

5:42pm May 01, 2017

by Mallory Yu

In the new Starz adaptation of Neil Gaiman's beloved fantasy novel, gods from all over the world are drawn to America when their worshippers arrive here — whether as immigrants, explorers, or slaves.

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W. Kamau Bell performs at Vulture Festival Comedy Night in New York City in 2014.

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W. Kamau Bell's 'Awkward Thoughts' On Racism And Black Comedy

2:28pm May 01, 2017

by Terry Gross

Feeling out of place is a fact of life for Bell, who describes himself as a "black and proud ... mama's boy." He celebrates his outsider status in the new memoir The Awkward Thoughts of W. Kamau Bell.

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Gabourey Sidibe's Message To The World: 'Mind Your Own Body'

11:58am May 01, 2017

by Rachel Martin

"I am plus-size, I have dark skin and I am 100 percent beautiful," the actress says. Her new book, This Is Just My Face, is a collection of essays about body image and her rise to fame.

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Turning to poetry, a trauma nurse explores the idea of compassion fatigue in a semi-autobiographical poem.

A Trauma Nurse Reflects On 'Compassion Fatigue'

5:10pm April 30, 2017

by Meredith Rizzo

Years of treating grievously injured people starts to wear on a person, a trauma nurse in Minneapolis says. She explores "compassion fatigue" in a semi-autobiographical poem.

Left: Title page of the first edition of Paradise Lost (1667). Right: William Blake, The Temptation and Fall of Eve, 1808 (illustration of Milton's Paradise Lost)

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'Paradise Lost': How The Apple Became The Forbidden Fruit

11:52am April 30, 2017

by Nina Martyris

Some 350 years ago, Milton's epic chronicled the Fall of Man, wrought by the red fruit. Except that it might've been a fig or peach or pear. An ancient Roman made a pun – and the apple myth was born.

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Author Uses Humor To Shed Light On Feminism, Race, The Internet

7:56am April 30, 2017

Lulu Garcia-Navarro talks with Scaachi Koul of BuzzFeed about her new book of essays, cheerily titled One Day We'll All Be Dead And None of This Will Matter.

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'I'd Die For You' Gives A Glimpse Into F. Scott Fitzgerald's Writing Life

7:00am April 30, 2017

by Heller McAlpin

Fitzgerald wrote most of his best work in his 20s, and the stories in this new collection — all unpublished or uncollected — demonstrate how hard it was for him to deliver what readers wanted.

Books

Inside 'The Black Hand' Crime Wave A Century Ago

7:57am April 29, 2017

Stephan Talty's The Black Hand tells the story of the Black Hand crime wave that gripped New York City in the early 1900s and the one policeman who took it on. He talks with NPR's Scott Simon.