Books

Books
Arts

Rich, Colorful 'Afar' Reimagines The Magical Girl

7:00am April 06, 2017

by Etelka Lehoczky

Leila del Duca and Kit Seaton's new novel follows a young girl in a richly-imagined North Africa-flavored fantasy world, who discovers she has the power to dream herself into different bodies.

Comics and graphic novels have become a flourishing space for explorations of race and identity. But what are the compromises they have to make to reach and please wide audiences?

Changing Colors In Comics

4:14pm April 05, 2017

by Gene Demby

Gene Demby and guest host Glen Weldon (our play cousin from Pop Culture Happy Hour) explore how comics are used as spaces for mapping race and identity.

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Alec Baldwin says his SNL impersonation of President Trump is purposefully exaggerated, a "Macy's Day Parade of Trump."

Books
Arts

Alec Baldwin On Career Highs And Lows And Playing A 'Larger Than Life' Trump

4:07pm April 05, 2017

Baldwin tells Fresh Air that his SNL impression of the president is purposefully exaggerated. "There's a kind of volume to it," he says. "It's kind of the Macy's Day Parade [version] of Trump."

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What it Means When a Man Falls From the Sky by Leslie Nneka Arimah

Books
Arts

'What It Means When A Man Falls From The Sky' Is Defiantly, Electrically Original

7:00am April 05, 2017

by Michael Schaub

Lesley Nneka Arimah's remarkable debut collection is both cohesive and varied at the same time. Grounded both in the U.S. and Nigeria, it's full of sly humor, genuine emotion and occasional horror.

Ernest Hemingway, pictured in 1948, and other famous figures throughout world history are often wrongly given credit for quotes and phrases. The author of Hemingway Didn't Say That: The Truth Behind Familiar Quotations aims to set the record straight.

Books
Arts

'Hemingway Didn't Say That' (And Neither Did Twain Or Kafka)

7:56pm April 04, 2017

There are tons of quotes from famous people out there — and a lot of them are just plain wrong. Author Garson O'Toole has dedicated himself to setting the record straight.

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Book Examines 17 'Gatekeepers' Into The White House's Inner Workings

4:47pm April 04, 2017

NPR's Robert Siegel talks to Chris Whipple and former White House Chief of Staff James Baker about The Gatekeepers, Whipple's look at how chiefs of staff have defined decades of presidencies.

Laura Jane Grace burned her birth certificate at a concert in North Carolina in 2016 in protest of the state's "bathroom bill" requiring transgender people in government facilities to use bathrooms that match the sex on their birth certificate.

For Laura Jane Grace, Punk Was A Form Of Armor

3:43pm April 04, 2017

The founder of the band Against Me! felt so conflicted about her gender growing up that she thought she was schizophrenic. Since transitioning, she's become more in touch with herself.

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Mayte Garcia looks back on her relationship with Prince in a new book titled The Most Beautiful.

Mayte Garcia Knew She Would Marry Prince, But Could Never Have Predicted How

11:37am April 04, 2017

In her new book, The Most Beautiful, Garcia explains how an unlikely meeting at one of the pop icon's concerts sparked a relationship full of love, surprises and, ultimately, heartbreak.

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Books
Arts

'Foxlowe' Is A Delicious Slice Of Darkness

7:00am April 04, 2017

by Jason Heller

Eleanor Wasserberg's debut novel is not for the faint of heart — this tale of a cultishly evil group called the Family who live in a mansion on the English moors is unrelentingly cruel and eerie.

William Powell was 19 when he wrote The Anarchist Cookbook. He died in July 2016.

Documentarian Says 'Anarchist Cookbook' Author Was Filled With Remorse

4:54pm April 03, 2017

by Kelly McEvers

But remorse and regret are two different things. William Powell's 1970s book contains instructions for making explosives. Charlie Siskel interviewed him for his film American Anarchist.

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