Author Interviews

Nico Walker wrote his semi-autobiographical novel Cherry while in federal prison for armed bank robbery.

An Iraq Veteran, Heroin Addict, Bank Robber And Debut Novelist

7:56pm August 13, 2018

by Quil Lawrence

Nico Walker is currently in federal prison for bank robbery. That's given him plenty of time to write his semi-autobiographical novel Cherry, which has received glowing advance reviews.

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Correspondent Reflects On Nearly 17 Years Of War In Afghanistan In 'The Fighters'

5:44pm August 13, 2018

Pulitzer Prize-winning author C.J. Chivers speaks with NPR's Mary Louise Kelly about his new book, The Fighters: Americans in Combat in Afghanistan and Iraq.

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Sire Records Co-Founder Seymour Stein Reflects On Life In 'The Pursuit Of Music'

1:59pm August 13, 2018

by Terry Gross

In his autobiography, Siren Song, Stein writes about how he started out in the music business as a teen before going on to sign groundbreaking artists like Talking Heads, Madonna, Ice-T and k.d. lang.

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Books

Twin Private Investigators In 'This Body's Not Big Enough For The Both Of Us'

8:13am August 12, 2018

NPR's Lulu Garcia-Navarro talks with Edgar Cantero about his book This Body's Not Big Enough for Both of Us. It stars A.Z. Kimrean, a brother and a sister — twins — trapped in the same body.

cover image for The Line That Held Us by David Joy

Books
Arts

'The Line That Held Us': Noir In Appalachia

8:13am August 12, 2018

by Lulu Garcia-Navarro

Novelist David Joy, whose books chronicle the rural, working-class South of his own milieu, has penned a new book where a hunting accident triggers a thriller of violent vengeance.

Understanding Horizontal Gene Transfer In 'The Tangled Tree'

8:19am August 11, 2018

NPR's Scott Simon asks science writer David Quammen about horizontal gene transfer and how it changes how we think about humankind's place in the world. Quammen's new book is The Tangled Tree.

Books
Arts

In Satirical 'Severance,' A Stricken Country Works Itself To Death

6:16pm August 10, 2018

by Ari Shapiro

When a disease wipes out most of the U.S. population, Candace Chen is the last one left at the office. Ling Ma began work on the apocalyptic novel right before she got laid off from her own job.

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Books
Arts

David Sedaris On The Life-Altering And Mundane Pages Of His Old Diaries

1:29pm August 10, 2018

by Terry Gross

Sedaris' Theft by Finding is a collection of excerpts from those diaries. In it, he revisits major turning points, including how he met his longtime boyfriend. Originally broadcast May 31, 2017.

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'Lies My Teacher Told Me,' And How American History Can Be Used As A Weapon

10:41am August 09, 2018

by Anya Kamenetz

James Loewen's 1995 book explained how history textbooks got the story of America wrong. Now, in a new edition, Loewen champions critical thinking in the age of fake news.

What 1 Journalist Learned From Researching The Causes Of The Opioid Epidemic

5:59pm August 08, 2018

NPR's Ailsa Chang speaks with journalist Beth Macy about her new book Dopesick, after she spent the last three years digging into the causes of the opioid epidemic, from rampant overprescribing of painkillers to stigma of heroin addiction in white suburban communities.

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