NPR Books

After six years, author Walter Mosley breathes life back into his detective hero Easy Rawlins — thought dead after crashing his car off a cliff. Easy embarks on another case, but as the lines blur between death and dying, he may discover answers to questions he hadn't thought to ask.

» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

Neil Gaiman's new book is based on a speech he delivered to graduates of Philadelphia's University of the Arts. When life gets tough, he told them, "make good art." It's advice that served him well when he turned a failed '90s TV series into the "much-loved" novel Neverwhere.

» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

Also: Illinois school district bans The Perks of Being a Wallflower; W.H. Auden's 1939 journal discovered; Bret Easton Ellis on gay stereotypes.

» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

Benjamin Percy's new literary werewolf novel, Red Moon, is packed with vivid, gory-lush description and heavy allegory about a world where "lycans" are a persecuted minority. But reviewer Nick Mancusi says the book gives short shrift to character development.

» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

Chimamanda Adichie's Americanah is about a young Nigerian woman who moves to the U.S. It's a story of relocation, far-flung love and life as an outsider. But reviewer Rosecrans Baldwin says that despite the author's talent, much of the storytelling feels flat.

» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

In 2011, Jessica Buchanan, an aid worker in Somalia, was kidnapped by land pirates. For 93 days she fought off despair while her husband, Erik Landemalm, wondered if he'd ever see her again. In a two-part interview, Buchanan and Landemalm recall Buchanan's capture and her dramatic rescue by Navy SEALs.

» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

Historian Rick Atkinson's new book completes his trilogy on the second world war. He tells NPR's Steve Inskeep that the events of the war may be 70 years in the past, but they're still very much a part of American culture.

» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

Albert Camus' Algerian Chronicles, finally available in translation, collects essays, columns and speeches from the writer's days as a young journalist. Camus was criticized for his moderate approach to the French-Algerian war, but reviewer Jason Farrago says Chronicles is a guide to "how to be just in a difficult world."

» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

The fourth volume in Robert Caro's monumental biography of Lyndon Johnson is The Passage of Power; it explores the period between 1958 and 1964 during which Johnson went from powerful Senate majority leader to powerless vice president to — suddenly — president of the United States.

» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

In softcover nonfiction, Tom Reiss explores the inspiration for The Count of Monte Cristo, Ben MacIntyre depicts a World War II effort to fool the Nazis, and Justin Lee recounts his struggle for acceptance as a gay Christian. In fiction, Dennis Lehane imagines a Prohibition-era mobster.

» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

Also: Behind the Beautiful Forevers will be adapted for the stage; Lionel Shriver attacks the media focus on weight; the best books coming out this week.

» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

Curse words change over time — back in the ninth century you could say the "s" word and no one would be offended. But we always need a set of words that are off-limits, and in her new book, author Melissa Mohr explains how the words that shock us reveal a lot about society's values.

» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

David Greene speaks with Jessica Buchanan and her husband Erik Landemalm about their book Impossible Odds. It's the story of Jessica's abduction, along with a fellow aid worker, by Somali pirates in 2011. In the first of the two-part interview, we hear how Jessica was abducted, and how she refused to fall into despair while in captivity.

» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

In a new book, former U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe explores how to fix the gridlock in Congress. Earlier this year, the Republican from Maine left the Senate out of frustration with the partisan stalemate. "It has to change, for the country," she says. "People deserve ... better representation."

» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

Salter's first book, in 1957, won the admiration of writers and critics alike. But he hadn't written a novel since 1979, until now. All That Is sets out to give a sweeping portrait of human experience, with a main character who appears suspiciously similar to Salter himself.

» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

NPR's Three-Minute Fiction contest will close Sunday night. Contestants should submit their stories at npr.org/threeminutefiction.

» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

Host Rachel Martin talks to writer Kevin Fedarko about his new book, The Emerald Mile, which tells the harrowing story of three men who ride the flooded Colorado River through the Grand Canyon.

» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

Anchee Min's new book, The Cooked Seed, picks up 20 years after the end of her bestselling memoir Red Azalea, as Min arrives in America with little money and no English. After persecution in China, Min describes art school in America as "a strange environment, very surreal."

» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

Neal Thompson's new biography traces the life of the newspaper cartoonist who became an international celebrity and media superstar. Ripley's pioneering mix of the strange, the shocking and the barely believable shaped the way Americans saw the world.

» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us