-
Suitcases symbolize a lot for three-time Grammy winner Lucinda Williams. She tells NPR's Juana Summers she keeps a briefcase of musical references to help with her songwriting. In her new memoir, Don't Tell Anybody the Secrets I Told You, she also writes about moving from place to place as a child – she'd lived in 12 places by age 18 – because of her father's work. -
Actor Rainn Wilson says he's "always identified as being a dork and a misfit and an outsider." In fact, he says that's probably why he found so much success playing Dwight Schrute in The Office.
-
For poet Camille Dungy, environmental justice, community interdependence and political engagement go hand in hand. She explores those relationships in her new book, Soil: The Story of a Black Mother's Garden. -
The Covenant of Water follows three generations of a family in the coastal state of Kerala, India, where they're haunted by a devastating event, over and over: In every generation, someone in the family drowns. -
The protagonist of Susanna Hoffs' debut novel, Jane Start, probably listens to Dionne Warwick to hype herself up in the morning. -
Today's episode features two novels with two very different protagonists, though their journeys might have more in common than appears at first glance. -
Today's episode features two children's books about Indigenous Americans. -
Today's episode starts with a familiar feeling – the way your heart drops when a book character that you love doesn't get the outcome you wanted for them. -
Congresswoman and former professor Katie Porter is known for showing up to hearings with a whiteboard to explain complicated topics. -
Donal Ryan's new novel, The Queen of Dirt Island, centers its women characters. He tells NPR's Mary Louise Kelly that making the men peripheral wasn't his goal – "it just kind of happened." -
NPR's Andrew Limbong talks with Dionne Ford about her new book, Go Back and Get It: A Memoir of Race, Inheritance, and Intergenerational Healing. -
Today's episode is a true story that reads like a novel. In 2006, author and labor organizer Saket Soni received a call from an Indian migrant worker.
