NPR

NPR's Book of the Day

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.

Website

22 April 2025

An early biography paints Pope Francis as 'The Great Reformer' of the Catholic Church

Pope Francis died Monday, leaving behind a legacy as "Pope of the People" and a change agent within the Catholic Church. Austen Ivereigh's The Great Reformer was published just a year into Pope Francis's papacy. But already, the biography argues, the pope had solidified his position as a radical reformer, both in his approach to hot-button issues and his interactions with regular people. In...

21 April 2025

Aided by new sources, Clay Risen's 'Red Scare' brings McCarthyism back to life

Journalist Clay Risen is out with a new narrative history of the Red Scare, based in part on newly declassified sources. In Red Scare, Risen depicts McCarthyism as a cultural witch hunt against all kinds of people, not just potential communist spies. And he argues that the Red Scare was part of a broader cultural backlash against New Deal progressivism and an increasing sense of cosmopolitanism...

18 April 2025

Two new children's books view the natural world as a site of personal growth

Two new picture books explore how the outside world can transform our relationships with our communities and ourselves. First, Kiese Laymon is out with a children's book about three Black boys who connect during a transformative summer in the South. With City Summer, Country Summer, Laymon says he wanted to explore the experience of getting lost as a kind of experimentation. In today's episode,...

17 April 2025

A new cookbook by Darjeeling Express chef Asma Khan was inspired by seasonal cooking

Asma Khan grew up in India, where late summer means monsoon season. But it wasn't until she moved to England in the '90s that she learned how to cook. At 45, after earning a PhD in constitutional law, she opened Darjeeling Express. The London restaurant made her into a celebrity chef and an authority on Indian food. Now, Khan is out with a new cookbook called Monsoon, which celebrates a seasonal...

16 April 2025

Rex Ogle's 'When We Ride' is a novel-in-verse about a best friendship under pressure

Seventeen-year-old Benny is studying hard and working as a busboy, hoping to attend college. Meanwhile, his childhood best friend, Lawson, is on a different path, dealing drugs – and is always in need of a ride. Rex Ogle's When We Ride is a novel-in-verse about their relationship, which becomes strained as differences between the two young men come into focus. In today's episode, Ogle joins NPR's...

15 April 2025

'Adventures in the Louvre' will teach you how to fall in love with the famous museum

Elaine Sciolino has one mantra: "Never go to the Louvre on an empty stomach or with a full bladder." The former Paris bureau chief of The New York Times has written a guide filled with her best advice for enjoying the world's most-visited museum. Her new book, Adventures in the Louvre, is part journalism, part memoir and part art history. In today's episode, Sciolino speaks with NPR's Mary Louise...

14 April 2025

An obituary writer makes a grave error in John Kenney's 'I See You've Called in Dead'

John Kenney's I See You've Called in Dead is about an obituary writer named Bud Stanely. One late night after a particularly bad date and too many glasses of Scotch, Bud drunkenly writes his own remembrance – and hits publish. The newspaper where he works wants to fire him, but can't legally terminate a dead person. But the error sets off a change in Bud's life as he begins to attend the funerals...

11 April 2025

Two new novels explore a world where technology has even greater access to our minds

Two new novels explore technology's increasing access to our most intimate thoughts. First, the protagonist in The Mechanics of Memory can't remember her last year. Hope has found herself in a too-perfect mental health facility where she participates in questionable treatment, some involving virtual reality. Audrey Lee's novel follows Hope as she slowly starts to recall pieces of her life and...

10 April 2025

A new oral history of Lollapalooza recalls the alt-rock music festival's wildest days

Lollapalooza is a popular music festival that takes place in Chicago's Grant Park each year. But it was conceived as a farewell tour for the band Jane's Addiction, kicking off with a series of chaotic performances across the United States in the summer of 1991. Lollapalooza, a new oral history by Richard Bienstock and Tom Beaujour, documents the wild early days of the festival through interviews...

09 April 2025

Emma Pattee's 'Tilt' imagines the aftermath of a life-changing earthquake

Annie is 37 weeks pregnant. She's shopping at IKEA in Portland, Oregon, when everything around her begins to shake. It's an earthquake – the big one. Unable to get in touch with her husband or anyone else, she starts to walk. This is the setup for Emma Pattee's new novel Tilt, which the author says was inspired by the major earthquake predicted to hit the Pacific Northwest in the next 50 years....