As a parent, how do you navigate and feel hope raising kids through a pandemic, a climate crisis and with police brutality in the news? That's the question at the center of Emily Raboteau's new book, Lessons for Survival: Mothering Against 'The Apocalypse.' In today's episode, Raboteau tells Here & Now's Celeste Headlee what she learned about radical care, resilience and interdependence through the people she met in her community and in her travels, and how she thinks about parenting through per...
May 16, 2024•11 min•Transcript available on Metacast The writer Colm Tibn says he never meant to write a sequel to his 2009 novel Brooklyn . But an image came to him years later, of his protagonist from that book suddenly finding out her husband has had an affair that resulted in a pregnancy and so he followed the story in Long Island . In today's episode, NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with Tibn about revisiting Eilis Lacey in her 40s and upending her domestic life. To listen to Book of the Day sponsor-free and support NPR's book coverage, sign u...
May 15, 2024•9 min•Transcript available on Metacast Chanel Miller's first book was a critically acclaimed memoir about her sexual assault and the following trial. But she always wanted to write and illustrate books for kids. In today's episode, Miller tells NPR's Andrew Limbong how moving to New York City and ingraining herself into her community inspired Magnolia Wu Unfolds It All , a new book about a young girl and her BFF traversing their neighborhood to return socks that were left behind at the laundromat to their owners. To listen to Book of...
May 14, 2024•15 min•Transcript available on Metacast Real Americans , the new novel by Rachel Khong, spans generations and decades within a family to understand the ongoing struggle to make sense of race, class and identity in the United States. Like with any family story, there are secrets and confrontations and difficult conversations, too; that desire to fill in the gaps about where we come from and how it has shaped our lineage is at the center of today's interview with Khong and NPR's Juana Summers. To listen to Book of the Day sponsor-free a...
May 13, 2024•9 min•Transcript available on Metacast This weekend is Mother's Day, a good occasion to reflect on the art of parenting. First, comedian Glenn Boozan speaks to Celeste Headlee on Here and Now about her book There Are Moms Way Worse Than You , a joke-book that uses examples of bad parenting from the animal kingdom to soothe those who might be worried about their own child-raising skills.Then, an interview from our archives: a 1989 chat with Amy Tan on All Things Considered about her novel The Joy Luck Club, the story of four Chinese A...
May 10, 2024•19 min•Transcript available on Metacast For poet Camille Dungy, environmental justice, community interdependence and political engagement go hand in hand. She explores those relationships in her book, Soil: The Story of a Black Mother's Garden . In it, she details how her experience trying to diversify the species growing in her yard, in a predominantly white town in Colorado, reflects larger themes of how we talk about land and race in the U.S. In today's episode, she tells NPR's Melissa Block about the journey that gardening put her...
May 09, 2024•9 min•Transcript available on Metacast At the center of author Naima Coster's novel What's Mine & Yours are two struggling mothers. Jade is a Black single mother who is trying to provide a better life for her son, and Lacey May is a white mother who is trying to give her daughters the life she never had. Their stories will intertwine over decades, starting with when Lacey May opposes the integration of her daughters' school the same school Jade is trying to get her son into. Coster told NPR's Audie Cornish that fiction gives us a win...
May 08, 2024•9 min•Transcript available on Metacast Poet Ocean Vuong's collection, Time Is A Mother, is about his grief after losing family members. Vuong told NPR's Rachel Martin that time is different now that he has lost his mother: "when I look at my life since she died in 2019, I only see two days: Today when she's not here, and the big, big yesterday when I had her." To listen to Book of the Day sponsor-free and support NPR's book coverage, sign up for Book of the Day+ at plus.npr.org/bookoftheday Learn more about sponsor message choices: p...
May 07, 2024•8 min•Transcript available on Metacast It's almost Mother's Day so today, we learn about the women who raised some of history's most important men in The Three Mothers: How the Mothers of Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and James Baldwin Shaped A Nation . Author Anna Malaika Tubbs told 1A's Jenn White that history is often told by and about men, but knowing these women's stories - "taking their lives from the margins and putting them in the center" - is just as important. As Tubbs notes, "If they'd never had these famous sons, the...
May 06, 2024•13 min•Transcript available on Metacast Author Amy Tan spends hours in her backyard, watching and drawing birds go about their business. Her new book, The Backyard Bird Chronicles , is full of essays and illustrations about her connection to these small creatures. In today's episode, she speaks with NPR's Leila Fadel about how an overwhelming sense of gloom from racism and political division in 2016 forced her to find a way to immerse herself in nature, and how her obsessive hobby led to a pretty high bird food budget and mealworms in...
May 02, 2024•8 min•Transcript available on Metacast Two childhood best friends realize they're in love and break up with their significant others to be together that's a classic romantic-comedy storyline. But in her new book, Funny Story , author Emily Henry wonders about some of the other forgotten cast members: what happens to the people who got dumped along the way? In today's episode, NPR's Juana Summers asks Henry about writing male characters that go to therapy, leaning into the cringey moments of falling in love and looking up to her own p...
May 01, 2024•9 min•Transcript available on Metacast Middle school can be a rough time no matter what. But for Isaiah, the eighth grader at the heart of Alicia D. Williams' book Mid-Air , there are some added challenges: feeling like his affinity for rock music and nail polish makes him weird, grieving the loss of a close friend, and drifting further and further apart from his other best bud. In today's episode, Williams speaks with NPR's Andrew Limbong about the particular difficulties Black boys face to feel like they belong, and why in the face...
Apr 30, 2024•8 min•Transcript available on Metacast Reporter David Sanger has covered five American presidents for The New York Times . But in today's episode, he tells NPR's Mary Louise Kelly that there's an unpredictability to the politics of today particularly on an international stage. His new book, New Cold Wars , analyzes how the ties between the United States, Russia and China have rapidly evolved in recent decades, and how technology, military intelligence and economic sanctions play into the conflict To listen to Book of the Day sponsor-...
Apr 29, 2024•9 min•Transcript available on Metacast In 2022, the author Salman Rushdie was onstage at a public event when a man ran up and stabbed him. His new memoir, Knife , delves into that moment when Rushdie thought he was going to die and everything that's come after, as he's healed from the attack. In today's episode, he speaks at length with NPR's Mary Louise Kelly about how the miracles found in his fiction might've manifested themselves in his real life, how his wife poet Rachel Eliza Griffiths has helped him move forward, and how writi...
Apr 26, 2024•17 min•Transcript available on Metacast To listen to Book of the Day sponsor-free and support NPR's book coverage, sign up for Book of the Day+ at plus.npr.org/bookoftheday Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy
Apr 25, 2024•9 min•Transcript available on Metacast Scout Bassett is a gold medalist runner but it was a long road to get there. In her new memoir, Lucky Girl , Bassett details how when she arrived in the United States as a young girl from China, she felt like an outsider in more ways than one. She speaks with NPR's Lakshmi Singh about her earliest years living in an orphanage in Nanjing, exposing her disability when she began running track as a teenager, and preparing for the upcoming Paris 2024 Paralympic Games. To listen to Book of the Day spo...
Apr 24, 2024•8 min•Transcript available on Metacast In the 1840s, a Scottish minister named John Ferguson accepts the task of traveling to a remote island to evict Ivar, the only man who lives there. When Reverend Ferguson falls off a cliff, Ivar brings him back to life and the two find a common understanding even as they realize they don't speak the same language. That's the basis of Carys Davies' new novel, Clear. In today's episode, NPR's Scott Simon asks the author about how she discovered a real-life extinct language called Norn, and how the...
Apr 23, 2024•8 min•Transcript available on Metacast Susan Casey has traveled about 17,000 feet deep into the ocean and in her book The Underworld: Journeys to the Depths of the Ocean , the diver and author speaks with oceanographers, marine biologists and geologists to explain some the of the wonders that exist way beyond what we can see in the water. For our Earth Day episode, Casey speaks with NPR's A Martinez about the millions of shipwrecks that are still preserved underwater, the creatures that call the deep ocean home and the humility it ta...
Apr 22, 2024•8 min•Transcript available on Metacast Spooky season is year-round, and so are our episodes about scary stories. First up, NPR's Ayesha Rascoe speaks with Jeanette Winterson about The Night Side of the River , a collection of ghost stories that weaves in the liminal spaces Metaverses, one might say created through technology to coexist with the dead. Then, NPR's Juana Summers asks Desiree Evans and Saraciea Fennell about The Black Girl Survives in This One , an anthology of horror stories by Black writers that contend with the genre'...
Apr 19, 2024•17 min•Transcript available on Metacast While screens have become a totally normalized part of kids' development today, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt argues that the negative effects might outweigh the benefits. His new book, The Anxious Generation , details the correlation between an increasingly online social life and rising mental health concerns amongst young people. In today's episode, NPR's Steve Inskeep asks Haidt about how boys and girls experience socialization on the Internet, and how some of these behaviors might be cu...
Apr 18, 2024•7 min•Transcript available on Metacast Patric Gagne says she realized at a young age that she wasn't like other kids. Shame, guilt, empathy feelings running rampant on the playground evaded her. Her new book, Sociopath , is about how she came to be diagnosed with sociopathy in college and how her own studies into clinical psychology shaped her understanding of the disorder. In today's episode, Gagne speaks with NPR's Michel Martin about her lived experiences as a sociopath, and how they actually led her to working as a therapist. To ...
Apr 17, 2024•8 min•Transcript available on Metacast Memory Piece , the new novel from National Book Award finalist Lisa Ko, kicks off in the 1980s with three teenage girls who find a deep connection to one another. Into the1990s and eventually the 2040s, the book delves into their growth as individuals and friends. In today's episode, Here & Now's Deepa Fernandes speaks with Ko about how art, gentrification and activism plays a role in each woman's life, and how memory and interdependence helps them find hope for their futures. To listen to Book ...
Apr 16, 2024•10 min•Transcript available on Metacast Pulitzer Prize finalist Lydia Millet is known for writing novels that are sometimes dark, yet funny peeks into communities and relationships. Her new book, We Loved It All , still follows some of those satirical undertones, but it's a nonfiction work that blends the author's real life experiences with anecdotes about the natural world. In today's episode, NPR's Leila Fadel asks Millet how what started as an encyclopedia of animals morphed into a bigger project about the nature of life, and how i...
Apr 15, 2024•8 min•Transcript available on Metacast Today's episode features two books for younger readers. First, NPR's Scott Simon speaks with John Schu about Louder Than Hunger , his new semi-fictional memoir that follows a middle school boy's journey with an eating disorder. Then, NPR's Scott Detrow asks author Omar Abed and illustrator Hatem Aly both older siblings about The Book That Almost Rhymed , their story about a big brother finding the silver lining in his little sister's constant interruptions. To listen to Book of the Day sponsor-f...
Apr 12, 2024•16 min•Transcript available on Metacast Garrard Conley's memoir Boy Erased chronicled his upbringing as a Baptist preacher's son and his experience being sent to conversion therapy. His new novel, All The World Beside , explores similar themes of faith, love and queer identity but through the lens of a relationship between two men in Puritan New England. In today's episode, Conley speaks with NPR's Ari Shapiro about how fiction allowed him to actually provide even more autobiographical details than a memoir, and how writing this book ...
Apr 11, 2024•9 min•Transcript available on Metacast Rae Wynn-Grant grew up in the Bay Area of California. But even if she was in the city, she was still fascinated by nature, eventually becoming one of those on-screen nature adventurers she spent her youth watching on TV. She speaks with NPR's Ayesha Roscoe about her new memoir Wild Life , and what she learned from other Black experts in the outdoors. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy...
Apr 10, 2024•8 min•Transcript available on Metacast In Amor Towles' story collection Table for Two , the writer revisits a character from his very first book Rules of Civility . Towles talks to NPR's Mary Louise Kelly about checking into the Beverly Hills Hotel for research purposes, and why he avoids technology in his stories. To listen to Book of the Day sponsor-free and support NPR's book coverage, sign up for Book of the Day+ at plus.npr.org/bookofthedayc Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Polic...
Apr 09, 2024•10 min•Transcript available on Metacast Hanif Abdurraqib's new book, There's Always This Year , is difficult even for the author to summarize it's part memoir, part basketball analysis, part poetry and essay collections. In today's episode, the MacArthur Fellow and writer speaks with NPR's Scott Detrow about how growing up in Columbus, Ohio, watching LeBron James' spectacular ascent, and understanding the passage of time all led to a meditation on mortality and success. To listen to Book of the Day sponsor-free and support NPR's book ...
Apr 08, 2024•15 min•Transcript available on Metacast Today's episode features two books that use bright, colorful illustrations to convey larger messages about acceptance and community. First, Here & Now's Deepa Fernandes speaks with author-illustrator Steve Asbell about Flap Your Hands , which celebrates how stimming is an act of self-care for autistic children. Then, NPR's Samantha Balaban gathers actress Julie Andrews, her daughter Emma Walton Hamilton and illustrator Elly MacKay to describe how shadows operate in their new fairytale, The Encha...
Apr 05, 2024•18 min•Transcript available on Metacast Editor's note: This episode contains a discussion of suicide. Early in today's episode, writer Sloane Crosley tells NPR's Ayesha Rascoe something that troubled her when paging through the self-help books she was gifted after a big loss. There was no chapter for how to grieve a close friend partners, siblings, parents, sure. But while not everyone has those relationships, she says, friendships are universal. Her new memoir, Grief Is for People , chronicles how she's coped with losing one of the m...
Apr 04, 2024•10 min•Transcript available on Metacast 
