Books

"There are some lessons that only grief and responsibility can teach us," says Weekend Edition host Scott Simon. His new memoir, Unforgettable, is about the life and death of his mother.

Writer Nina MacLaughlin hit her low point producing a listicle of the world's 100 Unsexiest Men. Six years and a lucky Craigslist ad later, she's a carpenter and author of the new memoir Hammer Head.

When Johanna Basford first told her publisher she wanted to draw books for adults — well, she says, "You can imagine how quiet they were." Today, both of her books have become sellout successes.

T. Geronimo Johnson's new novel follows a young man from a small Georgia town who comes home from college with a multicultural crew of friends, and plans for a disruptive (if well-intentioned) prank.

Are the Nordic countries really the utopias they're cracked up to be? NPR's Rachel Martin speaks with Michael Booth about his new book that attempts to answer that question.

Robert Siegel talks to Bill Browder, an American financier who was expelled from post-Soviet Russia and saw an attempt to claim his company devolve into a deadly bureaucratic and legal farce.

In Natalie Babbitt's celebrated classic, a young girl stumbles upon a secret spring and the family the spring has given eternal life to. Babbitt says she wrote the book to help kids understand death.

In the new psychological thriller, Rachel Watson becomes obsessed with a "perfect couple" she sees each day during her commute. When the woman in the couple disappears, Rachel decides to get involved.