Books

After a week spent searching for and wondering about the missing plane, author Alan Heathcock revisits the young adult novel Hatchet, and Jonathan Evison suggests Songs for the Missing.

In their memoir Sliver of Light, Shane Bauer, Sarah Shourd and Josh Fattal explain how they were captured on a road that bordered Iran, accused of spying and imprisoned for two years.

Around the world, many of us start our day with a drug derived from a natural insecticide: caffeine. Murray Carpenter tells the tale in Caffeinated: How Our Daily Habit Helps, Hurts and Hooks Us.

If waiting for help when your car breaks down doesn't strike you as a leisurely activity, it may be time to reconsider. A new book looks at time management challenges of being a working parent.

Author Walter Kirn thought he was befriending an eccentric Rockefeller, but his pal turned out to be an impostor wanted for murder. Kirn's new book explores the depths of that deception.

A new biography traces Carmichael's evolution from civil rights activist to an early proponent of the black power movement and international human rights advocate.

Goodnight Songs is a compilation of formerly unpublished lullabies and poems by the author of Goodnight Moon, Margaret Wise Brown. Linda Wertheimer talks to Amy Gary, who discovered the new material.

In a new book, Terry Golway takes a sympathetic view of Manhattan's infamous political machine. He says, "Tammany Hall was there for the poor immigrant who was otherwise friendless in New York."

Ross Klavan's novel follows two radio sidekicks in midcentury New York: golden-voiced straight man Ted Fox, who has an eye for a good-looking dame, and funnyman Jerry Elkin, a veteran of World War II.

Kaplan died Sunday at 88. His biography of Mark Twain won a National Book Award and a Pulitzer Prize. He also edited two editions of Bartlett's Familiar Quotations. Kaplan spoke to Fresh Air in 1992.

The poet describes his new book — about the death of his father and the birth of his son — as having a blues sensibility. "There are moments of humor even in the sorrow," he says.

A new book looks at how the military and Hollywood directors teamed up during the war. The films they made helped show Americans what was at stake, and served as evidence during the Nuremberg Trials.