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In need of a good read? Or just want to keep up with the books everyone's talking about? NPR's Book of the Day gives you today's very best writing in a snackable, skimmable, pocket-sized podcast. Whether you're looking to engage with the big questions of our times – or temporarily escape from them – we've got an author who will speak to you, all genres, mood and writing styles included. Catch today's great books in 15 minutes or less.

'The Instrumentalist' is a story about music, imagination and Anna Maria della Pietà

Harriet Constable learned a lot about the real life of Anna Maria della Pietà — that she grew up in an orphanage, that she was a star violinist and a favored student of Antonio Vivaldi. But in her new novel, The Instrumentalist, Constable also merges fact with fiction to tell the story of Anna Maria's synesthesia and musical talents. In today's episode, she speaks with NPR's Scott Simon about Anna Maria's life, the challenges and excitement of the classical music world at the time, and what we make of Vivaldi today. 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

'Ruin their Crops on the Ground' tracks the history and politics of food in the U.S.

Food is a source of nourishment, joy and autonomy for a lot of people – but in her new book, Ruin their Crops on the Ground, Andrea Freeman also tracks how the U.S. government has used food policy as a form of control and oppression. In today's episode, Freeman speaks with NPR's Ayesha Rascoe about how the book's title can be traced back to an order given by George Washington to destroy the food source of Indigenous nations, and how from slavery to Got Milk? campaigns to school lunches today, there's often a bigger political agenda behind nutrition education. 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

'The 15-Minute City' and 'Rethinking Rescue' reimagine existing systems

Today's episode features two books that advocate for new approaches to big problems: urban planning, poverty, and dog rescue. First, Here & Now's Scott Tong speaks with Carlos Moreno about The 15-Minute City, his proposal for interconnected communities where schools, grocery stores and offices are all a short walk or bike ride away from each other. Then, Here & Now's Peter O'Dowd speaks with Carol Mithers about Rethinking Rescue, which profiles Lori Weise, aka the Dog Lady, and examines her belief that animal welfare and efforts to help people going through economic instability should go hand in hand. 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

'How to Leave the House' follows a quest for a missing package

Natwest, 23, is about to finally leave for university. But a package he's waiting for has gone missing and – fearing humiliation if its contents are found out – he spends 24 hours looking for it all over town. That's the premise of Nathan Newman's comic novel, How to Leave the House. In today's episode, Newman speaks with NPR's David Folkenflik about some of the odd neighborhood characters Natwest bumps into along the way, and how their own concerns and their perceptions of Natwest completely challenge the notion of who he thinks he is as the protagonist of his own story. 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

In 'On the Edge,' Nate Silver analyzes professional risk-takers

What do hedge fund managers, poker players and the scientist behind the mRNA vaccine have in common? In his new book, On the Edge: The Art of Risking Everything, Nate Silver argues that they all exist in what he calls "the River" – a community of like-minded power brokers taking quantitative risks. In today's episode, Silver speaks with Here & Now's Scott Tong about what differentiates "the River" from what he calls "the Village" – think journalists and professors – and how cancel culture plays a role in this societal structure. 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

'Hurdles in the Dark' is a memoir about a kidnapping, juvenile detention and racing

Elvira K. Gonzalez says there was a lot of beauty to growing up in the culturally rich border town of Laredo, Texas. But there were some challenges, too. Her new memoir, Hurdles in the Dark, chronicles some of the more difficult aspects of her adolescence — her mom was kidnapped, Gonzalez was sent to juvenile detention, and she was preyed upon by her hurdling coaches. In today's episode, the author speaks with Here & Now's Deepa Fernandes about the resilience and optimism she carried through all of that, and how it's gotten her to where she is today. 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

Graphic novel 'Einstein in Kafkaland' ponders how two great minds met in Prague

From 1911 to 1912, Albert Einstein and Franz Kafka both lived in Prague. A new graphic novel by Ken Krimstein uses both history and artistic imagination to explore how the physicist and writer ran in the same social circles and how their work might have influenced each other. In today's episode, Krimstein speaks with NPR's Scott Simon about Einstein in Kafkaland and the brilliant academic and literary scene in Prague during that time period. 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

'Us, After' and 'A Haunted Girl' tackle mental health

Warning: this episode contains mention of suicide and mental illness. If you or someone you know may be considering suicide or is in crisis, call or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. Today's episode is about two books that focus on mental health challenges. First, Here & Now's Robin Young speaks with Rachel Zimmerman about Us, After, a memoir that details the grief and growth Zimmerman underwent when she had to pick herself and her children back up after her husband took his own life. Then, Robin speaks with dad daughter duo Ethan and Naomi Sacks about A Haunted Girl, a graphic novel that depicts a young girl's struggles with anxiety and depression through a supernatural lens. 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

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Rufaro faith mazarura, scott simon, m. t. anderson, ratings & reviews.

Maggiemae4567.89

I listen to maybe 3-4 episodes a week and have for a year or so. I have read many a book based on their recommendations. I would recommend this podcast but it IS biased left or progressive. I would like to see it less focused on minorities opinions because npr was too white for awhile. I said it. As a biracial American. I am left, I vote progressive. But we cannot exist in a bubble in an echo chamber, Correct? Do what is right and have more diverse opinions on. And that does not mean every minority that punishes a book. Cause that’s how it feels at times. From a loyal listener. Thank you.

Pisses of Conseravtives and I love it

Alice Renae

Great reads for those with open minds and a heart!

A different book a day

Jelly & Jam

I love the quick nature of this podcast. The variety of books is amazing, with both fiction, non fiction, and young adult included. The author is asked a few questions about their book and in a few minutes you can find if that is a book you want to read. I often find the current book I wanted to know a little more about in NPR’s selection of interviews. I recommend this podcast, if you’re a book reader. (Regarding another comment before mine…not sure how this podcast could be considered left leaning” but it certainly is not that).

Liberal dribble

yooperchicks

Maggiemae is correct and truthful. This is NPR, the social justice network. Books are diverse, NPR is not.

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• Years Active 2021 - 2024
• Episodes 774
• Copyright © Copyright 2021 NPR - For Personal Use Only
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Here are the Books We Love: 380+ great 2023 reads recommended by NPR

NPR's Books We Love returns with 380+ new titles handpicked by NPR staff and trusted critics. Find 11 years of recommendations all in one place – that's more than 3,600 great reads.

Open the app now!

Copyright 2024 NPR

Books We Love

Great reads, thoughtfully curated by npr.

‹ Back to books

What is this thing?

Books We Love is NPR’s interactive reading guide. Mix and match tags such as Book Club Ideas , Biography & Memoir or Eye-Opening Reads to filter results and find the book that’s perfect for you or someone you love.

How are the books selected?

We reached out to our staffers and trusted critics and asked them to nominate their favorite books published in 2023. They responded with hundreds of titles. Then, the editors and producers at NPR Books sat down with a huge spreadsheet of responses; we resolved duplications, noted omissions, considered the overall mix and balance of books recommended and then made assignments.

Why isn’t this just a list?

Back in 2013, the NPR Books staff was suffering from an acute case of list fatigue. So we teamed up with our friends at NPR News Apps and started to think about a site that would be more Venn diagram-y than list-y – a site that could help you seek out the best biographies that were also love stories, or the best mysteries that were also set in the past. We wholeheartedly believe that human beings are capable of absorbing new information in formats that are 1) not sequentially ordered and 2) wait … dammit! and 3) never mind.

But no, really, I just want to see a list of books

We got you. To view these books as a list of titles rather than as an array of covers, you are welcome to select the “List” option in the upper right-hand corner of the site.

So what’s the deal with these tags?

At NPR Books, we’re all about discovery: helping you find your next great read – the mystery you can’t put down, the memoir you recommend to all your friends. In 2013, we hashed out a basic taxonomy that was both functional (e.g., Biography & Memoir or Kids’ Books ) and fun (e.g., It’s All Geek To Me and Let’s Talk About Sex ). Over the years, we’ve refined our filters and added new tags, like The States We’re In and No Biz Like Show Biz .

The names are cute, but what do they mean?

The States We’re In is for stories of the American experience both true and fictional. It’s All Geek To Me is for deep dives on particular topics – trees, personality tests, tiny houses, you name it. In The Dark Side , you’ll find dystopias, serial killers, true crime and people behaving badly in general. Eye-Opening Reads will give you a new perspective on the topic at hand, whether it’s the state of philanthropy or a new pair of shoes.

How do the books get tagged?

Our critics and staffers make suggestions, but to ensure we are applying tags consistently, the producers and editors at NPR Books consider and discuss every tag on every book.

That must take a very long time

Can i look under the hood.

If you want to know more about how Books We Love was designed and coded, you can read about the process here . And if you’re curious to see the code and adapt it for your own project, you can check it out here .

If I click on the links and purchase one of the books, does that purchase help NPR?

Yes. And you can read more about how that works here .

How can I stay up to date on reviews and recommendations from NPR Books?

Sign up for our newsletter ! Every week we will send interviews, stories and reviews right to your inbox.

Subscribe to our podcast ! NPR’s Book of the Day brings you today’s great reads in 15 minutes or less.

Have fun exploring Books We Love! We hope you find something wonderful to read today.

The 2023 Books We Love team: Rose Friedman , Andrew Limbong , Beth Novey and Meghan Collins   Sullivan

Project Credits

This edition of Books We Love was published on Nov. 20, 2023.

• Produced and edited by Rose Friedman, Beth Novey and Meghan Collins Sullivan
• Design and development by Alyson Hurt and Brent Jones
• Copy edited by Preeti Aroon, Arielle Retting and Pam Webster
• Branding work by Luke Medina and Alexander Reade

Previous editions of Books We Love: Annette Elizabeth Allen, Preeti Aroon, Jeremy Bowers, Tayla Burney, Nicole Cohen, Patricia Cole, Danny DeBelius, Camila Domonoske, Beth Donovan, David Eads, Juan Elosua, Jess Eng, Natalie Escobar, Rose Friedman, Alice Goldfarb, Christopher Groskopf, Geoff Hing, Clinton King, Becky Lettenberger, Megan Lim, Wes Lindamood, Petra Mayer, Amy Morgan, Koko Nakajima, Duy Nguyen, Beth Novey, Maureen Pao, Katie Park, Ashley Pointer, Christina Rees, Arielle Retting, Ellen Silva, Meghan Collins Sullivan, Ruth Talbot, Shelly Tan, Pam Webster, Glen Weldon, Thomas Wilburn, Matthew Zhang

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Here are the books we love: 360+ great 2021 reads recommended by npr.

Books We Love (formerly known as NPR's Book Concierge) is back with a new name and 360+ new books handpicked just for you by NPR staff and trusted...

NPR's Books We Love , formerly the Book Concierge, has a new name and 360+ new titles handpicked by NPR staff and trusted critics. Find nine years of Concierge recommendations all in one place – that's more than 2,800 great reads.

Open the app now!

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Coastal flooding is getting more common, even on sunny days.

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U.S. charges Hamas leaders with terrorism over October attack in Israel

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Israel Mourns Dead Hostages; Gaza Civilians Don't Know Where to Go

Israel mourns six hostages, who were captured during the October 7th attacks by Hamas, and found by the Israeli military in Gaza, recently killed. We go to the funeral of one of the hostages, in Jerusalem. And in Gaza, nearly all residents have been displaced multiple times by evacuation orders from the Israeli military, into so-called humanitarian safe zones. We get a glimpse of what life is like in these overcrowded areas. For more coverage of all sides of this conflict, go to npr.org/mideastupdates

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'I want to write myself into existence,' says 'Colored Television' author

Danzy Senna was born in 1970, just a few years after Loving v. Virginia legalized interracial marriage. “Just merely existing as a family was a radical statement at that time,” she says.

Beloved 'Russian spy whale' Hvaldimir is found dead under mysterious circumstances

A beloved beluga whale with a mysterious past was found dead in the waters of Norway over the weekend. Admirers are paying tribute as authorities investigate.

Top dog Joey Chestnut beats his archrival and his own hot dog-eating world record

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A Russian missile strike has killed over 40 people in Ukrainian city of Poltava

Two Russian ballistic missiles struck a military training facility and nearby hospital in a central-eastern region of Ukraine, killing at least 41 people and wounding 180 others, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Tuesday.

Israeli boy who broke an ancient jar learns how the museum is piecing it back together

After a 4-year-old boy broke a 3,500-year-old vase, a museum in Israel viewed it as an educational opportunity and invited him and his family back to learn about how they would restore the item.

A photographer captures life in America’s last remaining old-growth forests

From salamanders and salmon to bears and mountain lions, David Herasimtschuk's images illustrate not only the beauty of the forests and their creatures but the symbiotic relationships that are vital to the forests’ health and the planet’s welfare.

'I want to write myself into existence,' says 'Colored Television' author

When Donald Trump attacked Kamala Harris’ biracial identity earlier this summer, writer Danzy Senna wasn’t surprised.

"She was Indian all the way, and then all of a sudden she made a turn and she went- she became a Black person," Trump said, falsely characterizing the way Harris has spoken about her biracial background.

This is nothing new, Senna explains: "He's articulating the relationship of America to mixed race people and the hostility, the suspicion and the kind of bewilderment with which we've been faced with, historically.”

Senna's mother, who is white, is from a prominent Boston family. Her father, who is Black, grew up in an orphanage in a small Alabama town. Senna has explored her own racial identity in both fiction and in the memoir, Where Did You Sleep Last Night? She notes that when she was born in 1970, "there was no 'mixed-race' category."

"You were either going to identify as white ... or you were going to identify as Black," she says. "And there was no doubt in my mind or my family's mind that I was going to identify as Black. ... My father … really wanted to impress upon us our Black identity."

Senna's new novel, Colored Television , tells the story of a writer named Jane who's devastated when the book she's been working on for 10 years — a novel about how the meaning of being biracial has changed over generations — is rejected by her publisher. Without publication, Jane won't get tenure at the university where she teaches, which means not having enough money to get by. The only solution she sees is to pitch an idea for a TV series.

"Some of my impulse to be a writer comes from that feeling that I want to write myself into existence," Senna says. "I want to write the worlds that I've lived in, and the people I've been in the world with, into existence because I never see them."

Interview highlights

On her parents getting married in 1968, one year after the Supreme Court's landmark Loving v. Virginia decision

They were part of a whole wave of the first marriages to come out of this huge political change. Their marriage was filled with all this symbolism and hope for the future and the sort of integration of American society and the kind of movement beyond these incredibly strict laws of segregation. ...

What it meant was also that I grew up with ... other mixed people around me who were also born out of the exact same moment in the exact same political movement. And so I've never been able to kind of separate the politics of the moment in which I was born from the personal, like those things are so intertwined for me, and the history is so clear.

On whether her parents saw their marriage as a political statement

I don't think that you could be a white woman of a certain class — my mother's a blond, blue-eyed, white woman who grew up the daughter of a Harvard professor in Cambridge and has this lineage that goes back to the earliest Americans, and also the slave-trading Americans — I don't think you could be her and marry a Black man without that seeming like an incredibly potent political gesture at that time. And then there was the class issue of my father being first from an orphanage and then from a very poor family in the South and then the housing projects in Boston. ... For him to marry someone of my mother's background was a huge class leap and ... crossing all sorts of lines.

I think people ... Black and white people get married nowadays and it's so common and can be sort of seen as "We just fell in love," but at that time you were really breaking all of those laws, even those that had already been dismantled were still in place in people's minds. I remember my mother went to the courthouse to get some paperwork for the marriage and in Boston, where interracial couples hadn't been illegal at that time ... [and] the woman said to her, "Wait, I have to go in the back and see if this is legal that you two are getting married." And there were constant experiences that we had in the world that really brought home to all of us that we were a radical statement in the culture as a family. Just merely existing as a family was a radical statement at that time.

On how publishers reacted to her writing about biracial people

When I first started publishing was in the ‘90s with my first novel [ Caucasia ], and there really wasn't anything like that. And that was a novel about a young girl of mixed race and racial passing. I had, like, eight rejections from agents when I first sent it out. And they would say, "This is too specific. … I don't recognize this family, and I don't understand this character's identity, and they're strange to me." And finally, I found an agent who really loved it and sold it.

When I published that book, it was met with a lot of acclaim. And I had this really great experience in terms of my first novel. But one of the things I kept hearing from publishers was. "Don't do this again. Don't keep writing about mixed-ness," like, "It's time to graduate on to something new and just leave that behind." And, it was almost as if they thought that mixed-ness was a plot and not a world and not a people, not a geography. ...

And I find that so interesting, because I never hear people say that to white authors who write about, say, a particular world of white people. And I actually don't hear it as much about Black authors who write about Blackness or Black worlds or race. But when I write about my people, it's considered somehow ... a "very special episode" that I shouldn't do again. I think part of the reason that I find that so telling is that it's that idea that you're a predicament. You're not a world. I think of it as: This is the world I write from. This is the geography and the culture that I write from, and it's interracial America, it's mulatto America.

On why she uses the term “mulatto”

I use the word mulatto a lot in my work, and I have sort of rejected the more politically correct term of "biracial" or "multiracial," mainly because it's meaningless and vague, and it could describe any two or three mixes that one could be. But mulatto — as problematic as the word is, and it comes out of slavery and the sort of pseudoscientific ideas of race, as problematic as it is — it's the only word that really describes this very specific experience of being Black and white and being that mixture in America, which is, singular, and I think an important distinction from the other mixes.

On how writing for television compares to writing novels

I wrote a pilot for a show that was based on my work. I wrote an original pilot for a limited series that is still out there being shopped around. … What I felt writing scripts is, I really like it. It's very interesting and sort of technical-feeling compared to writing novels. And I will continue to do it because it's a nice break between books, and it kind of can pay … to get a new stove in your kitchen, like there's actual financial benefits to doing it. But I think my soul is in the page and in writing novels. Being in control of the entire universe that I'm writing is really what feeds me on a much deeper level. And so I will never kind of fully abandon the written word. It just feeds me in a whole other way, but unfortunately doesn't literally feed me or my children.

Sam Briger and Joel Wolfram produced and edited this interview for broadcast. Bridget Bentz, Molly Seavy-Nesper and Beth Novey adapted it for the web.

Copyright 2024 NPR

'I want to write myself into existence,' says 'Colored Television' author

When Donald Trump attacked Kamala Harris’ biracial identity earlier this summer, writer Danzy Senna wasn’t surprised.

"She was Indian all the way, and then all of a sudden she made a turn and she went- she became a Black person," Trump said, falsely characterizing the way Harris has spoken about her biracial background.

This is nothing new, Senna explains: "He's articulating the relationship of America to mixed race people and the hostility, the suspicion and the kind of bewilderment with which we've been faced with, historically.”

Senna's mother, who is white, is from a prominent Boston family. Her father, who is Black, grew up in an orphanage in a small Alabama town. Senna has explored her own racial identity in both fiction and in the memoir, Where Did You Sleep Last Night? She notes that when she was born in 1970, "there was no 'mixed-race' category."

"You were either going to identify as white ... or you were going to identify as Black," she says. "And there was no doubt in my mind or my family's mind that I was going to identify as Black. ... My father … really wanted to impress upon us our Black identity."

Senna's new novel, Colored Television , tells the story of a writer named Jane who's devastated when the book she's been working on for 10 years — a novel about how the meaning of being biracial has changed over generations — is rejected by her publisher. Without publication, Jane won't get tenure at the university where she teaches, which means not having enough money to get by. The only solution she sees is to pitch an idea for a TV series.

"Some of my impulse to be a writer comes from that feeling that I want to write myself into existence," Senna says. "I want to write the worlds that I've lived in, and the people I've been in the world with, into existence because I never see them."

Interview highlights

On her parents getting married in 1968, one year after the Supreme Court's landmark Loving v. Virginia decision

They were part of a whole wave of the first marriages to come out of this huge political change. Their marriage was filled with all this symbolism and hope for the future and the sort of integration of American society and the kind of movement beyond these incredibly strict laws of segregation. ...

What it meant was also that I grew up with ... other mixed people around me who were also born out of the exact same moment in the exact same political movement. And so I've never been able to kind of separate the politics of the moment in which I was born from the personal, like those things are so intertwined for me, and the history is so clear.

On whether her parents saw their marriage as a political statement

I don't think that you could be a white woman of a certain class — my mother's a blond, blue-eyed, white woman who grew up the daughter of a Harvard professor in Cambridge and has this lineage that goes back to the earliest Americans, and also the slave-trading Americans — I don't think you could be her and marry a Black man without that seeming like an incredibly potent political gesture at that time. And then there was the class issue of my father being first from an orphanage and then from a very poor family in the South and then the housing projects in Boston. ... For him to marry someone of my mother's background was a huge class leap and ... crossing all sorts of lines.

I think people ... Black and white people get married nowadays and it's so common and can be sort of seen as "We just fell in love," but at that time you were really breaking all of those laws, even those that had already been dismantled were still in place in people's minds. I remember my mother went to the courthouse to get some paperwork for the marriage and in Boston, where interracial couples hadn't been illegal at that time ... [and] the woman said to her, "Wait, I have to go in the back and see if this is legal that you two are getting married." And there were constant experiences that we had in the world that really brought home to all of us that we were a radical statement in the culture as a family. Just merely existing as a family was a radical statement at that time.

On how publishers reacted to her writing about biracial people

When I first started publishing was in the ‘90s with my first novel [ Caucasia ], and there really wasn't anything like that. And that was a novel about a young girl of mixed race and racial passing. I had, like, eight rejections from agents when I first sent it out. And they would say, "This is too specific. … I don't recognize this family, and I don't understand this character's identity, and they're strange to me." And finally, I found an agent who really loved it and sold it.

When I published that book, it was met with a lot of acclaim. And I had this really great experience in terms of my first novel. But one of the things I kept hearing from publishers was. "Don't do this again. Don't keep writing about mixed-ness," like, "It's time to graduate on to something new and just leave that behind." And, it was almost as if they thought that mixed-ness was a plot and not a world and not a people, not a geography. ...

And I find that so interesting, because I never hear people say that to white authors who write about, say, a particular world of white people. And I actually don't hear it as much about Black authors who write about Blackness or Black worlds or race. But when I write about my people, it's considered somehow ... a "very special episode" that I shouldn't do again. I think part of the reason that I find that so telling is that it's that idea that you're a predicament. You're not a world. I think of it as: This is the world I write from. This is the geography and the culture that I write from, and it's interracial America, it's mulatto America.

On why she uses the term “mulatto”

I use the word mulatto a lot in my work, and I have sort of rejected the more politically correct term of "biracial" or "multiracial," mainly because it's meaningless and vague, and it could describe any two or three mixes that one could be. But mulatto — as problematic as the word is, and it comes out of slavery and the sort of pseudoscientific ideas of race, as problematic as it is — it's the only word that really describes this very specific experience of being Black and white and being that mixture in America, which is, singular, and I think an important distinction from the other mixes.

On how writing for television compares to writing novels

I wrote a pilot for a show that was based on my work. I wrote an original pilot for a limited series that is still out there being shopped around. … What I felt writing scripts is, I really like it. It's very interesting and sort of technical-feeling compared to writing novels. And I will continue to do it because it's a nice break between books, and it kind of can pay … to get a new stove in your kitchen, like there's actual financial benefits to doing it. But I think my soul is in the page and in writing novels. Being in control of the entire universe that I'm writing is really what feeds me on a much deeper level. And so I will never kind of fully abandon the written word. It just feeds me in a whole other way, but unfortunately doesn't literally feed me or my children.

Sam Briger and Joel Wolfram produced and edited this interview for broadcast. Bridget Bentz, Molly Seavy-Nesper and Beth Novey adapted it for the web.

Copyright 2024 NPR

Constitutional law scholar Kim Wehle explains how the pardon system works

STEVE INSKEEP, BYLINE: This year's Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity included a line about pardons. The court said the power to pardon people for past crimes belongs to the president alone. That means an ex-president cannot be prosecuted for abusing that power. Several recent presidents have been accused of abusing it, and former President Trump has talked of pardoning January 6 defendants if he should return to office. There's no way to take away that power under the Constitution, although law professor Kim Wehle argues Congress at least could make the process more transparent. She's written a book on the pardon power.

KIM WEHLE: It was adopted and basically borrowed from the monarchy in common-law England. The idea originally of the pardon power, that goes back 1500s, is an act of mercy by the sovereign for people who get lost in the criminal justice system. And Madison and Hamilton in particular, at the Constitutional Convention, believed that the president needed the ability to show an act of mercy to people who were wrongly convicted.

INSKEEP: And yet you write that there is a darker side to the pardon power, and it has been used to reinforce people who already have power. What did you mean by that?

WEHLE: Just like it's a sort of piece of a monarchy, it executes in a way that puts presidents above the law right now, because there really isn't meaningful checks on it. There is no way to appeal a pardon, and it wipes out the work of the other two branches. So Congress passes a law, says that this is a crime. It gets adjudicated through the entire system, and then a president comes in and says, no, I'm going to wave my magic pardon wand and forgive that. And it's been used, I think, increasingly for political reasons, for corruption, to cover up potentially a president's own wrongdoing, handouts to cronies, to donors. And these days, the more power and influence you have, the more likely you are to get a pardon. It's not really functioning in a way to ensure justice to people that are lost in the system or fall through the cracks.

INSKEEP: Why would my power and influence, if I had any, give me more chance at a pardon?

WEHLE: Well, there are people that lobby for pardons, right? Rudy Giuliani reportedly was peddling his influence for money for pardons. George W. Bush, when he left office, made a statement that he thought the pardon system wasn't working - I'm paraphrasing - and because there's this flurry of last-minute requests. I mean, Donald Trump granted 60% of his pardons in the very last days of office.

INSKEEP: If we think about the situation that we're in now, where whoever wins the presidential election is going to have the pardon power, what is your worst-case scenario?

WEHLE: Worst-case scenario is that person goes into office armed with the criminal immunity decision, knowing that official acts can be used to commit crimes, and decides they don't want to leave. And so they are going to bring people into the administration with complete, abject loyalty, offer them pardons - that information could be kept secret, potentially, under the immunity ruling - and populate the massive, powerful apparatus of the executive branch with people that are willing to commit crimes. And that will be the end of democracy, because when you've got the power of the commander in chief, the military, the FBI, the CIA, federal law enforcement, the IRS, the ability to spy on individuals, the ability to conduct bogus investigations, and people know they can engage in that with impunity - that is not democracy. That is something closer to a dictatorship.

INSKEEP: OK, wow. I thought you were going to tell me Donald Trump wins office and pardons the January 6 rioters. You're worried about a lot more than that.

WEHLE: I'm absolutely worried about a lot more than that. And when people push back on that, I'm reminded of, you know, just driving down the street and speeding, right? People will speed until there's a consequence for speeding.

INSKEEP: So that's the worst-case scenario. Can you talk me through a best-case scenario for ways the pardon power might be used to help heal some of our divisions?

WEHLE: Best-case scenario is a president decides, OK, I want to use this in a positive way. I want to use this in a thoughtful, systematic, transparent way to address some of the injustices in our criminal justice system. So the pardon power offers, in the right hands, opportunities to move us towards a fairer democracy. And in the wrong hands, it offers opportunities for the death of democracy.

INSKEEP: Kim Wehle, thanks very much for coming by. Really appreciate it.

WEHLE: Great to talk with you. Thank you, Steve.

INSKEEP: Her new book is called "Pardon Power." Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

'The Dictionary Story' is a kids' book that defies definition

Have you ever read a children's book where the main character is… the book?

Dictionary has noticed that even though her pages contain all the words that exist, she doesn’t really tell a story like all the other books on the shelf do. So one day, Dictionary decides to change that and bring her contents — guts? pages? definitions? — to life.

A hungry alligator bursts out of the pages ready for a snack — and finds a donut several pages later. But Donut doesn’t particularly want to be eaten, so he rolls off further into the alphabet. Alligator gives chase and the story soon goes off the rails — they crash into Queen who slips on Soap. And that’s all before Tornado shows up! Definitions go flying, no one is in the right place. Can Dictionary put herself back together again?

"It's a book about chaos. Chaos and order. Fine line," says Oliver Jeffers who — along with Sam Winston — wrote and illustrated The Dictionary Story. The two previously worked together on 2016’s A Child of Books (where the main character is a child, not a book). They’ve been working on The Dictionary Story pretty much ever since.

"But not working on it full time, seven years total" clarifies Oliver Jeffers. “Maybe if you were to add it all up, I don't know. I don't even want to think about that.”

(Sam Winston likes to joke that they knocked this one out in a week but he’s very much kidding — this book took work ).

For example, how do you make a book into a character that the children and adults reading the book can have a relationship with? "It was a real challenge because we had to literally make a book," explains Sam Winston. Luckily, his partner Haein Song is a bookbinder . "We had her literally make us two physical copies, which we then photographed and drew on and aged and then distressed in different ways." While the prop dictionary starts out all nice and new, by the end of the book she’s looking very beat up. "But it’s told a pretty wild story," says Winston.

Haein Song also sent Jeffers the paper that she used to bind the dummy book. "She sent enough of that to me that I was able to do the paintings on the same paper. So it looked seamless," Jeffers explains. Then he scanned the sheets of paper with his illustrations on them. The end result is a combination of photography, painting, ink handwriting, and typography, for the dictionary definitions.

"It looks like a real dictionary," says Jeffers. "But if you pay close attention, you'll see that all of the definitions have been rewritten." Like:

zero /ˈzɪərəʊ/ Zero is a word that means nothing . Nothing is a word that means nothing . Even though zero is a different word for nothing , both mean nothing . This definition has just told you nothing .

miracle /ˈ mɪr.ə.kl / Something that is amazing or magical for which there seems to be no scientific or common-sense explanation. Often associated with finding a parking space or getting homework done.

The definitions are not not true, but they are a little sideways.

As the characters in the book — like puddle /ˈpʌd.əl/ A small pool of water. Puddles are often made by rain and they love to look up at the sky — come to life (and, in Puddle’s case, make friends with Ghost), they disrupt the text on the page. Puddle, who Cloud made by crying, soaks through the definition for "power." Alligator makes a hole in the "a"s as he escapes from inside the book. When Queen slips on Soap, some of the "s" words go tumbling off the page entirely. Letters end up out of order, or jumbled up in a pile. Definitions are in the wrong column. Sentences go all wonky.

"The idea behind the book is that you’ve got this very rigid structure," Sam Winston says, of a typical dictionary. "So where some of the humor and the playfulness and the fun comes from is that this is a book doing something it shouldn’t do." Essentially, coming alive.

And to circle back to why it took Winston and Jeffers so many years to make this book: there’s not much software designed to do this in the way they needed it to be done. "Imagine a column of type in a newspaper accidentally becoming a waterfall of type," says Winston. "Everything gets knocked off its grid and its axis and out that waterfall emerges, say, a crocodile."

You'll probably never see that in a newspaper — or a normal, boring dictionary — because that is not what publishing software typically does. "We have all of these typographic structures that are not meant to be bent and then to bend them is like cutting out thousands of single letters and then sticking them back on the page," Winston says.

There was a lot of back and forth to get to the finished product — a lot of half completing drawings and half writing definitions, and then a lot of destroying an illustration and or a definition and sending it back again.

"It's a dance," says Sam Winston. "But you know, we like it. There's a lot of trust in the room, so we have fun."

And, by the way, the story itself is fun. While a lot of thought and work and planning went into making it, at its heart The Dictionary Story is just a good old fashioned chase story with a lot of chaos and a heartwarming ending (can Dictionary put herself back together? Maybe with a little help from some friends!)

"I think what you're looking at when you see these books are two individuals who have a deep respect for storytelling and the physical objects of books. Having fun together and playing well together and sharing that with the world," agrees Oliver Jeffers. "It's a pure joy."

Copyright 2024 NPR

Constitutional law scholar Kim Wehle explains how the pardon system works

STEVE INSKEEP, BYLINE: This year's Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity included a line about pardons. The court said the power to pardon people for past crimes belongs to the president alone. That means an ex-president cannot be prosecuted for abusing that power. Several recent presidents have been accused of abusing it, and former President Trump has talked of pardoning January 6 defendants if he should return to office. There's no way to take away that power under the Constitution, although law professor Kim Wehle argues Congress at least could make the process more transparent. She's written a book on the pardon power.

KIM WEHLE: It was adopted and basically borrowed from the monarchy in common-law England. The idea originally of the pardon power, that goes back 1500s, is an act of mercy by the sovereign for people who get lost in the criminal justice system. And Madison and Hamilton in particular, at the Constitutional Convention, believed that the president needed the ability to show an act of mercy to people who were wrongly convicted.

INSKEEP: And yet you write that there is a darker side to the pardon power, and it has been used to reinforce people who already have power. What did you mean by that?

WEHLE: Just like it's a sort of piece of a monarchy, it executes in a way that puts presidents above the law right now, because there really isn't meaningful checks on it. There is no way to appeal a pardon, and it wipes out the work of the other two branches. So Congress passes a law, says that this is a crime. It gets adjudicated through the entire system, and then a president comes in and says, no, I'm going to wave my magic pardon wand and forgive that. And it's been used, I think, increasingly for political reasons, for corruption, to cover up potentially a president's own wrongdoing, handouts to cronies, to donors. And these days, the more power and influence you have, the more likely you are to get a pardon. It's not really functioning in a way to ensure justice to people that are lost in the system or fall through the cracks.

INSKEEP: Why would my power and influence, if I had any, give me more chance at a pardon?

WEHLE: Well, there are people that lobby for pardons, right? Rudy Giuliani reportedly was peddling his influence for money for pardons. George W. Bush, when he left office, made a statement that he thought the pardon system wasn't working - I'm paraphrasing - and because there's this flurry of last-minute requests. I mean, Donald Trump granted 60% of his pardons in the very last days of office.

INSKEEP: If we think about the situation that we're in now, where whoever wins the presidential election is going to have the pardon power, what is your worst-case scenario?

WEHLE: Worst-case scenario is that person goes into office armed with the criminal immunity decision, knowing that official acts can be used to commit crimes, and decides they don't want to leave. And so they are going to bring people into the administration with complete, abject loyalty, offer them pardons - that information could be kept secret, potentially, under the immunity ruling - and populate the massive, powerful apparatus of the executive branch with people that are willing to commit crimes. And that will be the end of democracy, because when you've got the power of the commander in chief, the military, the FBI, the CIA, federal law enforcement, the IRS, the ability to spy on individuals, the ability to conduct bogus investigations, and people know they can engage in that with impunity - that is not democracy. That is something closer to a dictatorship.

INSKEEP: OK, wow. I thought you were going to tell me Donald Trump wins office and pardons the January 6 rioters. You're worried about a lot more than that.

WEHLE: I'm absolutely worried about a lot more than that. And when people push back on that, I'm reminded of, you know, just driving down the street and speeding, right? People will speed until there's a consequence for speeding.

INSKEEP: So that's the worst-case scenario. Can you talk me through a best-case scenario for ways the pardon power might be used to help heal some of our divisions?

WEHLE: Best-case scenario is a president decides, OK, I want to use this in a positive way. I want to use this in a thoughtful, systematic, transparent way to address some of the injustices in our criminal justice system. So the pardon power offers, in the right hands, opportunities to move us towards a fairer democracy. And in the wrong hands, it offers opportunities for the death of democracy.

INSKEEP: Kim Wehle, thanks very much for coming by. Really appreciate it.

WEHLE: Great to talk with you. Thank you, Steve.

INSKEEP: Her new book is called "Pardon Power." Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

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Editors' Choice

9 New Books We Recommend This Week

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Politics provide a through line for some of this week’s recommended books, from the focused activism of the early AIDS era (in Sarah Schulman’s “Let the Record Show”) to the history of government efforts to fight monopoly power (in Senator Amy Klobuchar’s “Antitrust”) to the plot of Richard Wright’s resurrected novel “The Man Who Lived Underground,” in which the Black protagonist is wrongly accused of murder.

Also up: a group biography of the women who helped get National Public Radio off the ground in the 1970s, a meditation on the Renaissance artist Albrecht Dürer, a memoir of a marriage-ending affair, and new fiction from Stephen Mack Jones, Cynthia Ozick and Jeff VanderMeer.

Gregory Cowles Senior Editor, Books Twitter: @GregoryCowles

LET THE RECORD SHOW: A Political History of ACT UP New York, 1987-1993 , by Sarah Schulman. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $40.) Schulman is a former member of AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, the influential direct-action group committed to ending AIDS. Her new book is based on 17 years of interviews she conducted with nearly 200 members of the organization. She sets her history in New York in the years between 1987 and 1993, when the Monday night meetings at a downtown lesbian and gay community center attracted hundreds. “‘Let the Record Show’ doesn’t seek to memorialize history but to ransack it, to seize what we might need,” our critic Parul Sehgal writes. “This is not reverent, definitive history. This is a tactician’s bible.”

ALBERT AND THE WHALE: Albrecht Dürer and How Art Imagines Our World , by Philip Hoare. (Pegasus, $28.95.) The central figure of Hoare’s latest project is the German artist Albrecht Dürer, but the book is a summary-defying blend of art history, biography, nature writing and memoir. “Hoare writes with the license of the nonexpert; you can feel the delight he takes in being unbound by anything but his enthusiasms,” our reviewer John Williams writes. “He is alternately precise and concealing. His biographical sections are both elliptical and redolent of entire lives. His art criticism is often stirring.”

DEAD OF WINTER , by Stephen Mack Jones. (Soho, $27.95.) In this third outing of a mystery series, the caustic, mordantly funny private investigator August Snow schemes to save his Detroit neighborhood from billionaires, fools and other opportunistic crooks. “What I’ve loved about Jones’s books is how they depict the pros and cons of mutual aid,” Sarah Weinman writes in her latest crime column. “Snow was a cop once, but pervasive racism meant he could never be fully part of the brotherhood. He can, however, try to protect his nearest and dearest, and when the tables turn and Snow is in dire need of aid, they can look out for him as well.”

THE MAN WHO LIVED UNDERGROUND, by Richard Wright. (Library of America, $22.95.) Wright wrote this chilling and powerful novel in the 1940s but was never able to publish it in full. Eight decades later, the restored text is still an urgent chronicle of the Black experience in America. Chased by the police for a crime he did not commit, the hero, Daniels, escapes into the sewers and maintains a ghostly existence. “More than any other Black writer, Richard Wright recognized that understanding Black folks’ relationship to the police is central to understanding racism,” Reginald Dwayne Betts writes in his review. “The tragedy here is not what ultimately befalls Daniels, but how a single interaction with the police causes him to profoundly question his own identity.”

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• Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/arts/12-books-to-read-from-2022

12 books to read from 2022

Which books of 2022 will you remember and recommend?

Thursday on the PBS NewsHour, Maureen Corrigan, book critic for NPR’s Fresh Air, and New York Times books editor Gilbert Cruz join Jeffrey Brown to share some of their favorite books of the year. Here, they describe a few of their suggestions.

“Trust” by Hernan Diaz

This is a novel that tells the rise of a financier in New York City in the early 20th century, but it tells it from four different perspectives. … This is one of my favorite books of the year.

– Gilbert Cruz

“The Candy House” by Jennifer Egan

Jennifer Egan wrote the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel A Visit From The Goon Squad. … And The Candy House is a sequel. … You find some of the same characters, but it sort of takes them in a completely different direction. …It is grappling with what it means to be hooked into technology and social media.

WATCH: New novel imagines how memories can be accessed and reviewed by ourselves and others

“Foster” by Clare Keegan

This is a novella… telling the story of a young girl who’s shipped off to relatives she doesn’t know to live for a summer on a farm. … Keegan raises the question of whether this is a kindness or not to introduce a child who has been deprived to a different way of living and different relationships when she’s going to be shipped back to her parents at the end of the summer.

– Maureen Corrigan

“If I Survive You” by Jonathan Escoffery

It’s about a Jamaican American family. The parents come to Florida to … try to give their two young sons another kind of life. They keep getting knocked down. The 2008 recession. Hurricane Andrew. Racism. Escoffery is a terrific writer … and the “You” his characters are trying to survive is America.

“Stay True” by Hua Hsu

It’s a memoir of growing up as a child of Taiwanese immigrants in California. But it’s also the memoir of going to Berkeley in the mid-1990s. … [The author] becomes friends with the son of Japanese American immigrants, a boy named Ken, who he first thinks is sort of this very simple frat boy, but then grows to learn is much more complicated. … It’s a book about grief. It’s a book about youth and nostalgia.

“An Immense World” by Ed Yong

This is a book about animals and specifically about the ways that animals perceive the world and how those perceptions are different from the way that humans see the world. … Whether you like animals or not, it was just endlessly fascinating.

WATCH: Grappling with grief as U.S. COVID deaths surpass 1 million

“Also a Poet” by Ada Calhoun

Ada Calhoun is writing about her father, Peter Schjeldahl, who was an art critic for The New York Times. … She comes upon these cassette tapes that her father made when he was trying to write a biography of the New York poet Frank O’Hara. And she decides she’s going to use these tapes to try to complete what he never completed. … “Also A Poet” is literary criticism. It’s biography of both her father and Frank O’Hara. And it’s also a daughter’s memoir and a love letter to New York City. So it’s fabulous.

“The Facemaker” by Lindsey Fitzharris

It’s about the pioneering plastic surgery work of Harold Gillies, a doctor during World War I, who’s faced with this catastrophe of all of these men who’ve had their faces shattered by the new technology of warfare during World War I. There are no textbooks, there are no guides. He’s trying to put these men’s faces back together again and to give them their lives.

“Lucy by the Sea” by Elizabeth Strout

A novel starring a character that she’s written about several times before, Lucy Barton. And in this novel, Lucy experiences the pandemic. She is an older woman who has to leave New York to go up to Maine to join her husband in a cabin so they can sort of get away from what they imagine is a very dangerous place to be. … I found it extremely readable.

WATCH: How fiction draws Pulitzer-winner Elizabeth Strout home to Maine

“The Year of the Puppy” by Alexandra Horowitz

Alexandra Horowitz is the head of the canine cognition lab at Barnard, and she’s written a lot of nonfiction about the way dogs think. … She and her family adopted a puppy during the pandemic. And so it’s partly that personal story … but also this attempt, yes, to get into the mind of a creature who we love but who is not us.

And two more personal favorites…

Corrigan suggested “Vladimir” by Julia May Jonas and Cruz suggested “Olga Dies Dreaming” by Xochitl Gonzalez .

In his more than 30-year career with the News Hour, Brown has served as co-anchor, studio moderator, and field reporter on a wide range of national and international issues, with work taking him around the country and to many parts of the globe. As arts correspondent he has profiled many of the world's leading writers, musicians, actors and other artists. Among his signature works at the News Hour: a multi-year series, “Culture at Risk,” about threatened cultural heritage in the United States and abroad; the creation of the NewsHour’s online “Art Beat”; and hosting the monthly book club, “Now Read This,” a collaboration with The New York Times.

Anne Azzi Davenport is the Senior Producer of CANVAS at PBS News Hour.

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