Books

A cover detail of The Mare, by Mary Gaitskill.

Books
Arts

Gaitskill Spins A Swirling Tale Of Love, Delusion And Horses In 'The Mare'

2:30pm November 23, 2015

by Maureen Corrigan

Mary Gaitskill's new novel chronicles the complex relationship between a poor black girl from Brooklyn and her middle-aged white benefactors. Maureen Corrigan calls The Mare a "raw, beautiful story."

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Books
Arts

Putting It All On The Table: Author Recalls A Food-Obsessed Family

5:28pm November 22, 2015

NPR's Michel Martin talks with author Dawn Lerman about her book My Fat Dad, an exploration of the many ways food shapes our connection to family.

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Books
Arts

Taye Diggs' Child Served As Inspiration For 'Mixed Me'

5:07pm November 22, 2015

by NPR Staff

Walker, the young son of actors Taye Diggs and Idina Menzel, inspired his father to write a book about a day in the life of a mixed-race child.

Books
Arts

'Black Dragon River' Charts History Along The Amur

7:03am November 22, 2015

by Jean Zimmerman

Dominic Ziegler's thrillingly thorough geo-history follows the Amur River from its origin on the Mongolian steppes, along the Trans-Siberian Railway and through centuries of Eurasian history.

Writer Ta-Nehisi Coates speaks onstage at the 2015 New Yorker Festival last month.

Ta-Nehisi Coates On His Work And The Painful Process Of Getting Conscious

5:40pm November 21, 2015

The writer, whose Between The World And Me was the winner of this year's National Book Award in nonfiction, talks about his process and the classmate and friend to whom he dedicated the award.

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Singer-songwriter Carly Simon is known for the songs "You're So Vain" and "Let the River Run".

Carly Simon: 'I'm Constantly Reemerging In My Life'

11:43am November 21, 2015

by NPR Staff

The woman behind "You're So Vain" has stories for days about love and music. On the occasion of a new memoir, she joins NPR's Scott Simon to unfold a few of them.

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Nordic items clockwise from top left: sugared cloudberries; Norwegian thick salt-pork pancakes, waffles; thick oven-baked pancake; blood pancakes; pancake torte.

Books
Arts

In 'The Nordic Cookbook,' An In-Depth Take On Region's Diverse Cuisine

10:59am November 21, 2015

by NPR Staff

Looking for a recipe for pickled herring or blood pancakes cooked in reindeer fat? Chef Magnus Nilsson's The Nordic Cookbook has these recipes and nearly 700 others.

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The Master of the Prado, by Javier Sierra.

Books
Arts

Mastery And Mystery Mix It Up In 'Prado'

7:03am November 21, 2015

by Bethanne Patrick

Javier Sierra's new The Master of the Prado follows a graduate student — also named Javier — who gets caught up in a web of arcane theories about the paintings in the famous Madrid museum.

Aziz Ansari in the Netflix series Master of None.

Books
Arts

Pop Culture Happy Hour: 'Master Of None' And 'Challenger Deep'

10:48pm November 20, 2015

by Linda Holmes

A newly minted National Book Award winner and a new Netflix series have us fully occupied this week, but we've also got plenty making us happy.

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French chef Auguste Escoffier, seen here at a cafe in 1921, helped to found the Ritz Hotel, where Ernest Hemingway was a longtime regular.

'Paris Is A Party': Responding To Tragedy, France Turns To Hemingway

3:32pm November 20, 2015

by Bill Chappell

Ernest Hemingway's memoir A Moveable Feast is being celebrated for what it, in turn, celebrates: Paris as an exciting place of ideas, a nexus of people who love life and the arts.