#npr books
Netflix’s adaptation of Nella Larsen’s 1929 book Passing starts streaming today – and if you’re not familiar with the original book, we’ve got a primer.
“Like a decades-early precursor to a Patricia Highsmith novel, a sense of sensual glamour, frustration and foreboding pervades Larsen’s famed novella,” says critic Carole V. Bell – read her full essay here.
– Petra
Divinity Roxx, best known for playing bass in Beyoncé’s all female band, is making her mark on the family music scene. From start to finish, her new album, Ready, Set, Go, is about positivity in mind and body – and two of the songs are being turned into kids’ books with illustrations from NaShantá Fletcher.
Our own Elizabeth BlairprofiledDivinity Roxx for today’s Morning Edition – so if you want a big ol’ blast of morning sunshine, check it out!
– Petra
Lily King follows up her 2020 novel Writers and Lovers with her first story collection, Five Tuesdays in Winter. Our critic Heller McAlpin says the book demonstrate’s King’s range, and “by range, we’re talking emotional range in addition to time and place. Five Tuesdays in Winter features stories that pull you in instantly and make you wonder what the author is going to spring on you next.” Read the full piece here!
– Petra
Image by Shannon Wright for NPR
It’sNational Novel Writing Month! (Or memoir, or nonfiction of your choice – doesn’t really matter, just get out there and WRITE.)
A while back, I did an episode of NPR’s Life Kit podcast aimed at helping frustrated writers finally sit down and crank out that book. It’s packed with good advice from NaNoWriMo director Grant Faulkner and writers Elizabeth Acevedo,K. Tempest BradfordandKat Chow (tl;dr: Do you write? Then you are a Real Writer). Check it out here!
– Petra
The Greek gods – they’re just like us! Rachel Smythe’s new Lore Olympus vol. 1, a dead-tree edition of her hit webcomic, transplants Hades and Persephone to a world of sportscars, slick suits and “apology donuts.” Our critic Etelka Lehoczky says “The diverse, subtle ways Smythe reiterates her central question — which can be summed up as something like, "How have we changed in the past two millennia? How have we stayed the same?” — make this book a great read for anyone who’s thought about the stubbornness of human nature and the resilience of classic tropes.“ Check out her full review here!
– Petra
Photo by Pete Souza courtesy of the Barack Obama Presidential Library
Barack ObamaandBruce Springsteen started a podcast in February – called Renegades, it’s a series of conversations between the two originally recorded during the first wave of the pandemic in summer 2020. And one recurring thread in those conversations is a shared passion: the love of their country, despite its flaws and troubled history (and present struggles).
Now those conversations have been turned into a book, full of personal photos, artifacts and notes alongside the words. Springsteen and Obama sat down with NPR’s Audie Cornish to talk about it – check out that conversation here!
– Petra
When Stars are Scattered is a lovely new graphic memoir that tells the story of a young Somali refugee and his brother on their long journey to America – our pals at the Goats & Soda blog talked to author Omar Mohamed about his life, his story and caring for his disabled brother along the way. Read the full interview here.
– Petra
If you only know George Orwell as the dyspeptic, dystopian creator of Animal Farmand1984,you should absolutely pick up Rebecca Solnit’s new Orwell’s Roses,which takes the rose garden Orwell planted at a rented cottage in 1936 as a jumping-off point to explore all kinds of questions. “For example,” writes reviewer Ilana Masad, “What was 1936 like politically, socially, and economically in England? Where was Orwell in his career then? Or: What did his given name signify and what history did it carry? What significance lay in his chosen nom de plume that over time was used by friends and family as well? And even: What does it mean to plant roses?”
Check out the full piece here!
– Petra
We’re so sorry to hear about the death of beloved illustrator Jerry Pinkney, who worked on more than 100 books for readers of all ages – and won a Caldecott Medal in 2010 for The Lion and the Mouse. Our own Neda Ulaby – who remembers Pinkney’s illustrations for ‘70s YA classics like Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry –has an appreciation here.
– Petra
Jane Goodall talked to Morning Edition’s Rachel Martin about her new memoir The Book of Hope – a meditation on how to remain hopeful when the headlines just keep getting worse.
“If we all lose hope, we’re doomed,” she says. “I’ve met so many people who don’t have hope, who say they feel helpless and hopeless. And I say to them, ‘Well, that’s because we’re always being told think globally, act locally.’ But quite honestly, if you think globally you’re just so depressed.” Acting locally, though, can inspire others to do the same, leading to what Goodall calls an “upward spiral.”
– Petra
It’s been … 42 years since the Hitchhiker’s Guide books answered the essential question of life, the universe and everything – in honor of the anniversary, our buddies at Weekend Edition Sunday talked to some superfans about what the books mean to them, and why, all these years later, y'all know exactly why we’re celebrating the 42nd anniversary and not the 40th or the 50th. Check it out here!
– Petra
We’re so sorry to hear about (and report) the death of beloved kids’ books author Gary Paulsen – whose classic Hatchet taught generations of kids to survive in the woods.
Our own Weekend Edition producer Samantha Balaban interviewed Paulson earlier this year when his memoir Gone to the Woods came out, and she wrote a lovely appreciation of him, which you can see here.
– Petra
Our favorite bookworms over at the Code Switch blog talked to Jocelyn Nicole Johnson about her new collection My Monticello– a collection of short stories and a novella that follows a group of Black and brown characters living in and around Charlottesville, VA., infamously the site of the violent Unite the Right rally in 2017.
“I really wanted to push,” she tells Karen Grigsby Bates. “What if this went on unfettered? What would happen? What is the natural consequence of supporting this, this extreme movement? And asking those questions in the hopes that we might do something different.”
Check out the full conversation here!
Petra
Reprieve is a hybrid of smart lit-fic and pulpy horror, says our critic Gabino Iglesias – overstuffed and slightly unwieldy, but held together by James Han Mattson’s storytelling skills.
“Taken all together, it’s a bit much at times, though luckily, Mattson always maintains control,” he says. “Still, readers should enter at their own risk. The experience might be harrowing — but just like Quigley House, the reward at the end is worth it.” Check out the full review here.
– Petra
Alix E. Harrow’s new A Spindle Splinteredbreaks down “Sleeping Beauty” and rebuilds it – no longer is our protagonist under a curse from a bad fairy, now she’s a modern teenager doomed to an early death because of the aftereffects of an industrial accident.
“This is a slender novella but it spins a strong and captivating tale. It’s funny, sharp, queer, and deeply loves its source material,” says critic Jessica P. Wick – you can find her full review here.
– Petra
Today on NPR’s Book of the Day – it’s football season so it’s a great time to revisit Keyshawn Johnson’s conversation with Morning Edition’s A Martinez about his new book The Forgotten First, all about trailblazing Black football players. (Your faithful editor is D.C. born and raised, so this is a good, but painful read.) Check it out here!
– Petra (who still hasn’t forgiven her mom for throwing out her kid-size Art Monk jersey 35 years ago)
Amor Towles new novel, set in 1954, follows a foursome of rowdy kids (some freshly released from reform school) who pile into a beat-up Studebaker and hit the road in search of a better life. Critic Heller McAlpin calls it “a joyride … hitch onto this delightful tour de force and you’ll be pulled straight through to the end, helpless against the inventive exuberance of Towles’ storytelling.” Find her full review here!
– Petra
A few years ago, author Claire Vaye Watkins went viral with an essay called “On Pandering,” in which she wrote about how her debut story collection Battleborn was written “for white men, toward them. If you hold the book to a certain light, you’ll see it as an exercise in self-hazing, a product of working-class madness, the female strain. So, natural then that Battleborn was well-received by the white male lit establishment: it was written for them.” She’d had a baby, and “that, patriarchy says, is not the stuff of art.”
But in her latest, I Love You but I’ve Chosen Darkness, critic Natalie Zutter says Watkins is writing adamantly and fiercely for herself. This surreal, autofictional odyssey about a character (also named Claire) who abandons her family after having a baby, opting instead for a road trip through sites important in her past, shows readers that “that one does not have to choose the lesser of two evils. A woman can want motherhood and the rest of her life, not or.”Check out the full review here!
– Petra
Hello hello hello! Today on our shiny new Book of the Day pod, we’re featuring a conversation for everyone who truly loves books and the enduring power of stories (that’s all of us, right??) – Anthony Doerr and Scott Simon talking about his new book Cloud Cuckoo Land, which turns on a fictional text (also called “Cloud Cuckoo Land”) from a real-life ancient Greek writer that has endured through the centuries.
– Petra
Former White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham – who notably did not hold any public press briefings during her tenure – is the latest Trump aide to write a tell-all book.
Our own White House correspondent Ayesha Rascoe saysI’ll Take Your Questions Nowstands out from the pack of Trump tell-alls, “because in a White House where turnover was constant, she managed to go from the campaign to working in the White House and remained there for almost all of Trump’s presidency” – and yet Grisham maintains a curious distance from her subjects.
“At times the book almost reads like a tale of a working class woman grappling with over-the-top demands from a mercurial rich couple that employs her — not the story of a top government official who represented the leader of the free world,” Rascoe writes. Check out her full review here!
– Petra
