Podcaster Jennifer Welch talks about her new book, ‘Not Today, Fascists’
NPR’s Leila Fadel speaks with podcaster Jennifer Welch about her new book, “Not Today, Fascists.”
‘Here I am, my full, authentic self’: Murray Hill charts his own course in ‘Showbiz!’
Hill co-starred in HBO’s Somebody Somewhere and has hosted drag king shows and queer cabarets. “This is my mantra … if you don’t see yourself represented, go out and represent yourself,” he says.
Here are the finalists for the 2026 National Book Awards
Three-time National Book Award finalist Edwidge Danticat and debut novelist Morgan Thomas are up for the fiction prize. Nonfiction books cover the prison system and music, and queer parenthood.
Loving your mother is torture. Do it anyways.
Author Mary H.K. Choi is obsessed with her mom.New York Times bestselling author, Mary H.K Choi, is known for her young adult novels Emergency Contact and Yolk. But her latest novel, Pool House, is for adults, and details the relationship between a Korean-American D-list actress in her 40s and her 20-year old daughter, who’s always lived in her mother’s shadow. Today’s chat is all about families – how they change, how they don’t, and why we keep on loving the ones who hurt us the most. Support public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include sponsor-free listening. Learn more at plus.npr.org.
Evan Gershkovich never stopped being a journalist
Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich recounts his imprisonment on false espionage charges in Russia in his new memoir, This Cursed Beautiful Land: A Russian American Story.
Ayad Akhtar’s ‘The Radiance’ addresses provocative subjects head-on
Like his previous work, including Homeland Elegies, The Radiance exposes the fissures of American racial, political and economic identity.
No one expected an American pope. Here’s the inside story of how ‘Bob’ became Pope Leo
When the 2025 conclave began, no one expected an American pope. But by its end, Cardinal Robert Prevost had become Pope Leo. Here’s a look behind the scenes.
10 books we are looking forward to this fall
Move over, beach reads. With the fall equinox behind us, we can now curl up with cozy autumn books. There are new titles coming from Barbara Kingsolver, Chad Harbach, Jasmine Guillory and more.
A visit with Barbara Kingsolver: We talk ‘Partita,’ piano, aging and Appalachia
Before she won the Pulitzer for Demon Copperhead, Kingsolver wasn’t sure her neighbors knew what she did for a living. Her new novel Partita, about a classical pianist, gets very personal.Support public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include sponsor-free listening. Learn more at plus.npr.org.
Mahmoud Khalil on his detention by ICE: ‘It is a stain on the U.S. consciousness’
Khalil was the face of the pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University when immigration agents arrested him and sent him to detention in Louisiana. His new memoir is No Land to Stand On.