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Lawyer Argues That Virtual Trials Would Make Justice System More Fair

1:02pm June 17, 2015

by NPR Staff

Adam Benforado's new book, Unfair: The New Science of Criminal Injustice, describes a system in which race, accents and even attractiveness couldn't play a role in a jury's decision.

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Aziz Ansari is a writer, stand-up comedian and actor well-known for playing Tom Haverford in NBC's Parks and Recreation.

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From Dating Exhaustion To ... Flo Rida? Aziz Ansari Surveys 'Modern Romance'

1:02pm June 17, 2015

by NPR Staff

The comic teamed up with a sociologist to write an overview of dating and relationships. His book explains online dating's paradox of choice and how we're all like a song by hip-hop artist Flo Rida.

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Etgar Keret's work has been published in The New Yorker and The New York Times, and he's contributed to This American Life.

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What Etgar Keret Learned From His Father About Storytelling And Survival

12:01pm June 17, 2015

The Seven Good Years spans the time between the birth of his son and the death of his father. Keret says his father, who was a Holocaust survivor, taught him to "look reality straight in the face."

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Too Much 'Word,' Not Enough 'Nerd' In This Scrabble Story

10:15am June 17, 2015

by Heller McAlpin

Professional Scrabble fan John D. Williams' new memoir is chock full of interesting tidbits (like lists of important words with Q, X and J) but gets bogged down in tedious biographical detail.

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'Modern Romance:' Love In The Age Of Demography

7:03am June 17, 2015

by Jason Sheehan

Aziz Ansari did a lot of demographic research — yes, you read that right — for his new book, and the result is an uneasy but occasionally entertaining hybrid of hard data and too-sparse comedy.

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Who's That Batgirl? 'Burnside' Charms Despite Stumbles

8:07pm June 16, 2015

by Etelka Lehoczky

Barbara Gordon gets a perky makeover in the new Batgirl Vol. 1. Critic Etelka Lehoczky says the series is a clever exploration of identity in the digital age, but suffers from occasional cluelessness.

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We're All Looking For A Home 'In The Country'

7:31pm June 16, 2015

by Michael Schaub

Many of the characters in Mia Alvar's debut story collection are outcasts looking for love and a home — but critic Michael Schaub says it's hard to condense this impressive book into just one theme.

In his new book One Man Against the World, Tim Weiner explores some of the questions surrounding the presidency of Richard Nixon, pictured above in the Oval Office on Feb. 19, 1970.

Fueled By Fear, How Richard Nixon Became 'One Man Against The World'

4:52pm June 16, 2015

In his new book, New York Times journalist Tim Weiner paints a portrait of a president overwhelmed by wars at home and abroad, whose self-destructive behavior resulted in "political suicide."

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Kate Atkinson says she never sees her characters at just one stage of their lives. Just as we are constantly thinking about the past, present and future in real life, she constructs her characters in the same way.

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Kate Atkinson Tells Book Club How She Crafts Characters At All Life Stages

4:24pm June 16, 2015

In A God in Ruins, Atkinson jumps forward and backward in time, telling the story of characters as children, parents and grandparents. "We don't just live in this moment," she says.

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Bloomsday enthusiasts get into the sartorial spirit of Ulysses in the novel's native town, Dublin.

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Merry Bloomsday! For Communion With Joyce, Raise A Sacramental Guinness

2:25pm June 16, 2015

by Colin Dwyer

To honor the day that James Joyce's character Leopold Bloom wandered the streets in Ulysses, fans the world over have found fitting ways to celebrate — boisterously, and often reverent with obscenity.