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4 Lives In Parallel Run Through Ambitious '4 3 2 1'

11:21am February 01, 2017

by Michael Schaub

Paul Auster's new novel is a departure for the author — 880 pages of flowing prose about four versions of one character, living four mostly-parallel lives. It's sometimes confusing, but never boring.

Worshipful female followers fought for the Mad Monk's leftover bread crusts. His infamous sweet tooth led to his death. Or did it? A century later, rumors about Grigori Rasputin, Russia's czarina whisperer, still swirl.

Fact Or Fiction? Even When It Comes To Food, It's Hard To Tell With Rasputin

11:55am January 31, 2017

by Nina Martyris

Worshipful female followers fought for the Mad Monk's leftover bread crusts. His infamous sweet tooth led to his death. Or did it? A century later, rumors about Russia's czarina whisperer still swirl.

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'Six Wakes' Is A Nerve-Tingling Interstellar Murder Mystery

11:30am January 31, 2017

by Jason Heller

In Mur Lafferty's latest, six crewmembers wake up to horror on a malfunctioning spaceship — the artificial gravity is gone, and blood floats in the air. It's up to them to find out what happened.

Barely a week after assuming office, President Donald Trump set off a worldwide firestorm when he decided to temporarily ban migrants from seven Muslim-majority countries and refugees from all over the world from entering the United States.

Fortress America: What We Can — And Can't — Learn From History

12:00am January 31, 2017

President Trump's executive order on refugees left travelers stranded at airports worldwide. To some, the scenes evoked images of Jewish refugees during World War II. We investigate the parallels.

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'Perfect Little World' Imagines Family Drama Inside A Utopian Compound

3:26pm January 30, 2017

by Maureen Corrigan

Kevin Wilson's new novel is set on a state-of-the-art commune where children don't know who their biological parents are. Critic Maureen Corrigan says the book lives up to its title.

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Laotian Gen. Vang Pao, seen here calling in air strikes against suspected Communist positions from the Long Cheng Command Post in January 1972, led an army of Hmong tribesmen to fight against Communist insurgents backed by the North Vietnamese. A CIA-led

How The U.S. War In Laos Was Key To The 'Birth Of A Military CIA'

2:57pm January 30, 2017

by Nishant Dahiya

A new book by Joshua Kurlantzick examines how the U.S. involvement in Laos in the 1960s and 1970s transformed the CIA from an intelligence-gathering organization into a war-fighting one.

A photo of a patient receiving care in the hospital.

Doctor Considers The Pitfalls Of Extending Life And Prolonging Death

2:28pm January 30, 2017

In Modern Death, Dr. Haider Warraich says a slow dying process, during which patients move in and out of hospitals or nursing homes, is a "very recent development in our history as a species."

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This Is How It Always Is by Laurie Frankel.

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'This Is How It Always Is' Was Inspired By Its Author's Transgender Child

9:49am January 30, 2017

by NPR Staff

Still, Laurie Frankel says, her book is fiction. "The nice thing about my life is that it's pretty boring, which is really how you want your life to be — but not how you want your novel to be."

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Lost In Whimsy, 'Perfect Little World' Spins Off Course

10:00am January 29, 2017

by Michael Schaub

Kevin Wilson's new novel follows a pregnant teen who joins an experimental commune — but the characters in Perfect Little World never come alive, and the book suffers from an overdose of whimsy.

Kim Cattrall as socialite — and murder victim — Emily French in The Witness for the Prosecution.

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Kim Cattrall, More Than Just A Murder Victim In 'Witness For The Prosecution'

8:25am January 29, 2017

by NPR Staff

Cattrall — best known for her role on Sex and the City — plays a murdered socialite in a new TV adaptation of Agatha Christie's play. She says she wanted to open up the character and understand her.