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.
Episodes
May 24, 2024 • 18 mins
Today's episode is about two massive stars: Whoopi Goldberg and Tom Selleck. First, Goldberg speaks with NPR's Ayesha Rascoe about her new memoir, Bits and Pieces, which touches on her relationship with her mother, the way she navigated beauty standards growing up, and what it means to grapple with grief over time. Then, Selleck joins NPR's Scott Simon to discuss You Never Know, his initial reluctance to take on his role in Magnum ...
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May 23, 2024 • 7 mins
Years ago, Karla Tatiana Vasquez tried to search up a recipe for one of her favorite Salvadoran dishes, Salpicón Salvadoreño. The scarce results not only disappointed Vasquez, but created a new mission: to collect and preserve the recipes of the Salvadoran diaspora along with the stories of the women who've been passing them down for generations. In today's episode, NPR's A Martinez visits Vasquez's kitchen to discuss The SalviSoul...
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May 22, 2024 • 10 mins
A plane ticket to Paris, a vintage Dior dress and a spectacular first-ever oyster — these three things upend the life of Stella, the sheltered, cautious protagonist at the heart of The Paris Novel, a coming-of-age story about losing all inhibitions in one of the world's most romantic cities. In today's episode, author Ruth Reichl speaks with NPR's Scott Simon about indulging in life's simple pleasures, writing in honor of her late ...
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May 21, 2024 • 7 mins
Racism is a major contributor to economic disparities in the U.S. – but in her new book, The White Bonus, writer Tracie McMillan crunches the numbers to understand just how much money white privilege can mean. In today's episode, she speaks with NPR's Michel Martin about the different families she profiled, the generations of economic policy she analyzed, and the rift created within her own family during the process of reporting th...
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May 20, 2024 • 7 mins
Caoilinn Hughes' novel The Alternatives revolves around the four Flattery sisters, each with a more impressive career or degree than the last, all with a profound grief for the parents they lost at a young age. When one of the sisters purposely goes off the grid, the other three are reunited in the Irish countryside in an attempt to find her. In today's episode, NPR's Andrew Limbong asks Hughes about crafting the witty dialogue bet...
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May 17, 2024 • 13 mins
In 2022, WNBA star Brittney Griner was detained by Russian authorities, convicted of drug charges and given a nine-year prison sentence. Her new memoir, Coming Home, details the conditions she was held in and her eventual return to the U.S. following a swap deal. In today's episode, NPR's Juana Summers asks Griner about the mental and physical toll she's still grappling with, reuniting with her wife and trying to forgive herself fo...
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May 16, 2024 • 10 mins
As a parent, how do you navigate – and feel hope – raising kids through a pandemic, a climate crisis and with police brutality in the news? That's the question at the center of Emily Raboteau's new book, Lessons for Survival: Mothering Against 'The Apocalypse.' In today's episode, Raboteau tells Here & Now's Celeste Headlee what she learned about radical care, resilience and interdependence through the people she met in her communi...
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May 15, 2024 • 8 mins
The writer Colm Tóibín says he never meant to write a sequel to his 2009 novel Brooklyn. But an image came to him years later, of his protagonist from that book suddenly finding out her husband has had an affair that resulted in a pregnancy — and so he followed the story in Long Island. In today's episode, NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with Tóibín about revisiting Eilis Lacey in her 40s and upending her domestic life.
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May 14, 2024 • 15 mins
Chanel Miller's first book was a critically acclaimed memoir about her sexual assault and the following trial. But she always wanted to write and illustrate books for kids. In today's episode, Miller tells NPR's Andrew Limbong how moving to New York City and ingraining herself into her community inspired Magnolia Wu Unfolds It All, a new book about a young girl and her BFF traversing their neighborhood to return socks that were lef...
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May 13, 2024 • 8 mins
Real Americans, the new novel by Rachel Khong, spans generations and decades within a family to understand the ongoing struggle to make sense of race, class and identity in the United States. Like with any family story, there are secrets and confrontations and difficult conversations, too; that desire to fill in the gaps about where we come from and how it has shaped our lineage is at the center of today's interview with Khong and ...
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May 10, 2024 • 18 mins
This weekend is Mother's Day, a good occasion to reflect on the art of parenting. First, comedian Glenn Boozan speaks to Celeste Headlee on Here and Now about her book There Are Moms Way Worse Than You, a joke-book that uses examples of bad parenting from the animal kingdom to soothe those who might be worried about their own child-raising skills.Then, an interview from our archives: a 1989 chat with Amy Tan on All Things Considere...
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May 9, 2024 • 9 mins
For poet Camille Dungy, environmental justice, community interdependence and political engagement go hand in hand. She explores those relationships in her book, Soil: The Story of a Black Mother's Garden. In it, she details how her experience trying to diversify the species growing in her yard, in a predominantly white town in Colorado, reflects larger themes of how we talk about land and race in the U.S. In today's episode, she te...
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May 8, 2024 • 8 mins
At the center of author Naima Coster's novel What's Mine & Yours are two struggling mothers. Jade is a Black single mother who is trying to provide a better life for her son, and Lacey May is a white mother who is trying to give her daughters the life she never had. Their stories will intertwine over decades, starting with when Lacey May opposes the integration of her daughters' school – the same school Jade is trying to get her so...
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May 7, 2024 • 7 mins
Poet Ocean Vuong's collection,Time Is A Mother, is about his grief after losing family members. Vuong told NPR's Rachel Martin that time is different now that he has lost his mother: "when I look at my life since she died in 2019, I only see two days: Today when she's not here, and the big, big yesterday when I had her."
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May 6, 2024 • 12 mins
It's almost Mother's Day – so today, we learn about the women who raised some of history's most important men in The Three Mothers: How the Mothers of Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and James Baldwin Shaped A Nation. Author Anna Malaika Tubbs told 1A's Jenn White that history is often told by and about men, but knowing these women's stories - "taking their lives from the margins and putting them in the center" - is just as impo...
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May 2, 2024 • 7 mins
Author Amy Tan spends hours in her backyard, watching and drawing birds go about their business. Her new book, The Backyard Bird Chronicles, is full of essays and illustrations about her connection to these small creatures. In today's episode, she speaks with NPR's Leila Fadel about how an overwhelming sense of gloom from racism and political division in 2016 forced her to find a way to immerse herself in nature, and how her obsess...
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May 1, 2024 • 8 mins
Two childhood best friends realize they're in love and break up with their significant others to be together – that's a classic romantic-comedy storyline. But in her new book, Funny Story, author Emily Henry wonders about some of the other forgotten cast members: what happens to the people who got dumped along the way? In today's episode, NPR's Juana Summers asks Henry about writing male characters that go to therapy, leaning into ...
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April 30, 2024 • 7 mins
Middle school can be a rough time no matter what. But for Isaiah, the eighth grader at the heart of Alicia D. Williams' book Mid-Air, there are some added challenges: feeling like his affinity for rock music and nail polish makes him weird, grieving the loss of a close friend, and drifting further and further apart from his other best bud. In today's episode, Williams speaks with NPR's Andrew Limbong about the particular difficulti...
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April 29, 2024 • 9 mins
Reporter David Sanger has covered five American presidents for The New York Times. But in today's episode, he tells NPR's Mary Louise Kelly that there's an unpredictability to the politics of today — particularly on an international stage. His new book, New Cold Wars, analyzes how the ties between the United States, Russia and China have rapidly evolved in recent decades, and how technology, military intelligence and economic sanct...
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April 26, 2024 • 17 mins
In 2022, the author Salman Rushdie was onstage at a public event when a man ran up and stabbed him. His new memoir, Knife, delves into that moment when Rushdie thought he was going to die — and everything that's come after, as he's healed from the attack. In today's episode, he speaks at length with NPR's Mary Louise Kelly about how the miracles found in his fiction might've manifested themselves in his real life, how his wife – po...
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