Books

This handmade angel was given to Bonnie Mackay by a former colleague in the Bloomingdale's Home Furnishings and Fashion office. It is one of the nearly 3,000 ornaments in her collection, which she has categorized into 67 different classifications.

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On This 'Tree Of Treasures' There's No Such Thing As An Ordinary Ornament

5:44pm December 02, 2016

by NPR Staff

Bonnie Mackay has written an unusual sort of memoir: Tree of Treasures is the story of her life, told through Christmas tree ornaments. She has nearly 3,000 of them, divided into 67 classifications.

Seafood Mousse: Cheer up, love, it might never happen.

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Hot-Dog Tiaras And Other '70s Dinner Party' Delicacies

10:52am December 02, 2016

by Jessica Leigh Hester

A food blogger's fascination with retro entertaining pays off in a colorful volume of curious eats.

Massumeh Farhad points to one of the Qurans in the exhibition. As curator, she flipped through all of the books on display. "Every page is absolutely breathtaking," she says.

Quran Exhibition Shines A Light On The Holy Books' Dedicated Artists

10:16am December 02, 2016

by Steve Inskeep

The Smithsonian show isn't about the words of the Quran so much as the people who laboriously copied it, letter by letter. When they made a mistake, they fixed it with flourish — and sometimes gold.

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Ginger Rogers is a plucky hotel switchboard operator who helps foil a spy ring in Ginger Rogers And The Riddle Of The Scarlet Cloak.

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Ginger Rogers And The Case Of The Authorized Editions

11:12am December 01, 2016

by Genevieve Valentine

Before modern fan fiction, there were the Whitman Authorized Editions — a series of mystery novels from the 1940s and 50s that "starred" real movie stars, like Ginger Rogers and Gene Tierney.

Peter and Ezra, / you made a great team. / Together you brought a snowstorm / of your dreams.

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'A Poem For Peter' Recalls One Unforgettable 'Snowy Day'

5:09am December 01, 2016

by Lynn Neary

In 1962, Peter — an African-American boy exploring his neighborhood after a snowstorm — broke the color barrier in mainstream children's publishing. A new book pays tribute to author Ezra Jack Keats.

Gianfranco Rosi's documentary, Fire at Sea, is set on the tiny Sicilian island of Lampedusa, where tens of thousands of migrants come ashore each year.

2 New Works Confront The Refugee Crisis With Empathy And Humanity

2:24pm November 30, 2016

by John Powers

Critic John Powers discusses the Italian documentary, Fire at Sea, and the novel, These Are the Names. The works take very different — but nonetheless poignant — approaches to the refugee situation.

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In 'ODY-C,' A Greek Hero Worthy Of Women

7:00am November 30, 2016

by Annalisa Quinn

Matt Fraction and Christian Ward's splendidly trippy, genderbent retelling of the Odyssey sets the story in space, as warlike Odyssia, "witchjack and wanderer" winds her way home to far Ithicaa.

Cleve Jones speaks outside the Supreme Court in June 2013.

LGBTQ Activist Cleve Jones: 'I'm Well Aware How Fragile Life Is'

3:14pm November 29, 2016

Jones became an activist after Harvey Milk's assassination, and he lost countless friends to the AIDS epidemic. He says, "There are some days when it is so painful that I really can barely function."

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Searching for John Hughes by Jason Diamond (Raquel Zaldivar/NPR)

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'Searching For John Hughes,' And Finding Yourself

9:17am November 29, 2016

by Drew Toal

Jason Diamond tried to write a biography of John Hughes, director of classic '80s teen movies, but along the way, the story became more about his search for Hughes than the elusive filmmaker himself.

Carrie Fisher reprised her role of Princess Leia in the 2015 film Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

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Carrie Fisher Opens Up About 'Star Wars,' The Gold Bikini And Her On-Set Affair

5:00pm November 28, 2016

In her new memoir, The Princess Diarist, Fisher looks back on playing Princess Leia when she was 19 and reflects on her romantic involvement with her older, married co-star, Harrison Ford.

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