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 8, 2026 • 20 mins
Journalist Jodi Kantor and Harvard happiness expert Arthur Brooks are both out with new books about identifying and cultivating meaning in one’s life. Brooks says he wanted to write The Meaning of Your Life after observing an explosion in depression and anxiety among young people beginning around 2008. In today’s episode, he chats with Here & Now’s Indira Lakshmanan about how neglecting right-brain activity has led us astray. Then,...
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May 7, 2026 • 10 mins
Lena Dunham shot the pilot for the HBO series Girls at age 24. Quickly, she was launched into the creative spotlight but the author says she was not prepared for “everything that came with it.” In her new memoir Famesick, Dunham recounts the “Wild West” of the 2010s, which included her rapid creative education, chronic health issues, and intense bonds with her Girls co-stars. In today’s episode, she tells Wild Card’s Rachel Martin ...
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May 6, 2026 • 10 mins
In Julia Langbein’s new novel, a woman named Jean is in turmoil over her past. She has rediscovered a diary from 1998, when she was 17-years-old, and spots a judgemental comment about Monica Lewinsky. Now 45 and remembering her own mistakes, Jean calls out to Lewinsky – and her prayers are answered. In today’s episode, Langbein joins NPR’s Elissa Nadworny for a discussion about Dear Monica Lewinsky that touches on adolescent desire...
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May 5, 2026 • 8 mins
During the second week of the Covid lockdown, Belle Burden’s husband ended their 20-year marriage and became “someone [she] did not recognize.” Their divorce and the affair that prompted it came as a shock to Burden, who says she had been happily married, enjoying “cozy” time with their family in Martha’s Vineyard. She recounts her story in Strangers: A Memoir of Marriage, which is now in its ninth printing and will be developed in...
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James Wolff is the pseudonym of a former British intelligence officer who now writes espionage novels. His latest, Spies and Other Gods, follows the Head of British Intelligence at the tail end of a long and successful career who feels that his mental acuity is beginning to slip away. In the midst of this brain fog, Sir William Rentoul must join forces with intelligence teams across Europe to track down an anonymous assassin. In to...
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May 1, 2026 • 17 mins
Two new novels center vital, but unusual connections across age. In The Take, an aspiring writer named Maggie agrees to an outlandish deal with Ingrid, an established Hollywood producer. Author Kelly Yang spoke with NPR’s Ailsa Chang about the medical procedure at the center of the novel, which accelerates Maggie’s aging while reversing Ingrid’s. Then, The Left and the Lucky tells the story of an 8-year-old boy and a man in his 40s...
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April 30, 2026 • 8 mins
Wars in Ukraine and in the Middle East are reshaping global politics. In The Dark Side of the Earth, exiled Russian journalist Mikhail Zygar traces the origins of these conflicts to the end of the Cold War. The book is a history of Russia as seen from Moscow during different moments in the Soviet Empire. In today’s episode, the author talks with NPR’s Nick Spicer about how the Soviet Union’s 1991 collapse was only a temporary win f...
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April 29, 2026 • 8 mins
Natalie Heller Mills is a tradwife influencer with 5 million followers. She drinks raw milk, eats farm fresh eggs, and is “perfect at being alive.” But when she wakes up in 1855, the very time period she’s fetishized, she feels afraid – and paranoid that she’s being filmed. In today’s episode, Caro Claire Burke joins NPR’s Ayesha Rascoe for a conversation about the author’s debut novel, Yesteryear. They discuss Natalie as an anti-h...
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April 28, 2026 • 7 mins
Demis Hassabis says when he set up an AI lab in 2010, “no one believed in it.” The Google DeepMind co-founder and Nobel Prize winner is the subject of Infinity Machine, a new biography by Sebastian Mallaby. The book is a portrait of Hassabis, who Mallaby characterizes as a rare competitor across both science and business. In today’s episode, Mallaby speaks with NPR’s Steve Inskeep about Hassabis’ origins as a young chess player, hi...
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April 27, 2026 • 7 mins
In Maria Semple’s new novel, Adora Hazzard works as a moral trainer to the tweens of a wealthy family on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. She’s a content, divorced stoic philosopher in her late 50s with a coven of likeminded, middle-aged female friends. But one night at the ballet, she falls into conversation with a stranger and gets seduced by a world of secrecy, black-market art, and international intrigue. In today’s episode, S...
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April 24, 2026 • 29 mins
This week, we're celebrating National Poetry Month by revisiting some of our favorite conversations with poets. In 2024, then U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón edited and introduced You Are Here: Poetry in the Natural World, a collection of poems by writers like Joy Harjo and Jericho Brown that pays homage to landscapes across the United States. In today's episode, Limón joins NPR's Rachel Martin on Wild Card. They discuss pivotal momen...
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April 23, 2026 • 8 mins
This week, we're celebrating National Poetry Month by revisiting some of our favorite conversations with poets. In 2020, Kwame Alexander was feeling the weight of being Black in America and didn't know how to make sense of his feelings. So, he made sense of them through his book of poetry, Light For The World To See: A Thousand Words On Race And Hope. It's three poems on three historic events: the murder of George Floyd, Colin Kaep...
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April 22, 2026 • 8 mins
This week, we're celebrating National Poetry Month by revisiting some of our favorite conversations with poets. When Raymond Antrobus was 6 years old, he learned he was deaf. His memoir The Quiet Ear describes living in a world of in-betweenness, straddling intersections of race, class, hearing and deafness. In today’s episode, Antrobus joins NPR’s Mary Louise Kelly for a discussion that touches on his connection with the creative ...
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April 21, 2026 • 9 mins
This week, we're celebrating National Poetry Month by revisiting some of our favorite conversations with poets. Joy Harjo, who was the U.S. poet laureate from 2019 to 2022, says she has always been drawn to healing ever since she was little. She even studied pre-med in college. But it wasn't until Harjo heard Native poets that she realized "this is a powerful tool of understanding and affirmation." She shares her poetry and story i...
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April 20, 2026 • 8 mins
This week, we're celebrating National Poetry Month by revisiting some of our favorite conversations with poets. 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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April 17, 2026 • 15 mins
Two figures who defined ‘90s culture are out with new memoirs. First, Brandy Norwood is a Grammy-winning singer and made history as the first Black actress to play a Disney princess on screen. In today’s episode, she speaks with NPR’s A Martínez about her memoir Phases, her beloved roles in Rodger & Hammerstein’s Cinderella and Moesha, and collaborations with Whitney Houston and Monica. Then, Arsenio looks back at The Arsenio Hall ...
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April 16, 2026 • 4 mins
A few years ago, author Emma Straub saw a story about New Kids on the Block hosting a tropical cruise for their fans. That planted the seed for Straub, whose new novel, American Fantasy, is about a fictional, aging boy band called Boy Talk that sets sail for five days of nostalgia. In today’s episode, the author speaks with NPR’s Justine Kenin about the 50-year-old female fan at the center of the novel. Straub also shares her exper...
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April 15, 2026 • 9 mins
Twenty years into her medical career, Dr. Mary Fariba Afsari, a board-certified OBGYN, had grown increasingly frustrated with the medical profession. She felt that medicine had become more about business and less about caring for patients. Her new memoir, Labor: One Woman’s Work, is about her decision to purchase an RV and convert it into a mobile clinic, which she drove around the country providing medical care. In today’s episode...
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April 14, 2026 • 11 mins
In the new novel Crucible, director and author John Sayles turns his attention to Henry Ford, Detroit, and automotive labor in the 1920s through World War II. The historical novel focuses less on Ford’s story and more on the cast of characters whose lives were changed by the businessman: Ford workers, labor organizers, young radicals, and many others. Here & Now’s Robin Young recently spoke with Sayles at the West Newton Cinema out...
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April 13, 2026 • 9 mins
In November of 2019, a young man leaped into the Thames River from a London apartment building and died. After 19-year-old Zac Brettler’s death, his parents learned their son had adopted a false identity as the son of a Russian oligarch. The mystery surrounding Brettler’s identity is the subject of Patrick Radden Keefe’s new book London Falling. In today’s episode, the author joins NPR’s Scott Simon for a conversation about Brettle...
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