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
July 8, 2025 • 8 mins
In Peter Mendelsund's novel Weepers, many in the world are concerned they'll be replaced by smart machines. But a cowboy poet named Ed has found work in the American Southwest. He's a professional weeper, part of a group of union workers hired to mourn at funerals. In today's episode, Mendelsund tells NPR's Scott Simon that the novel was inspired, in part, by the author's own experience with depression and "oversensitivity."
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July 7, 2025 • 8 mins
Ten years ago, Ta-Nehisi Coates published Between the World and Me, written as a letter to his then-15-year-old son. The book was released shortly after a shooting at Mother Emanuel church in Charleston left nine people dead – and it became a literary phenomenon as many Americans searched for answers about the state of race relations in the United States. In today's episode, Coates reflects on the 10 year anniversary of Between the...
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July 4, 2025 • 19 mins
Today's encore episode features two interviews with Kevin Kwan, author of the Crazy Rich Asians series. First, former NPR host Lulu Garcia-Navarro spoke to the writer in 2020 about Sex and Vanity, exploring identity through the lens of a biracial character and setting a new trilogy between Europe and the U.S. Then, Here & Now's Robin Young asks Kwan about his newest novel, Lies and Weddings, and his thoughts on the fascination with...
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July 3, 2025 • 7 mins
Author Emma Straub has written a book about family dynamics and the mess and love that comes with them in All Adults Here. It's no secret that families are complicated. Straub argues a lot of our familial relationships are about watching each other grow up — and whether or not you allow those you love to grow and change. In today's encore episode, she told NPR's Scott Simon that even the imperfect bits are worth loving.
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July 2, 2025 • 8 mins
Bonnie Garmus' novel Lessons in Chemistry got a lot of buzz when it was first released in 2022. Elizabeth Zott is a talented chemist but because it's the 1960s, she faces sexism in her quest to work as a scientist. So instead, she has a cooking show that is wildly popular. In this encore episode, Garmus told NPR's Scott Simon that the character of Elizabeth lived in her head for many years before she started writing this novel.
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July 1, 2025 • 9 mins
The novel The Rachel Incident is rooted around a wonderful, messy friendship. Rachel and James live together, party, and get themselves into a peculiar situation with an older married couple. In today's encore episode, author Caroline O'Donoghue speaks with NPR's Miles Parks about how abortion and sexual repression in Irish society play a large role in Rachel's early adulthood. O'Donoghue also shares why it was important to her tha...
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June 30, 2025 • 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 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 encore episode, NPR's Juana Summers asks Henry about writing male characters that go to therapy, leaning in...
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June 27, 2025 • 18 mins
Today on the show, two new books take different routes to humor. First, writer Damon Young is out with an anthology of comedic essays called That's How They Get You. Young says he reached out to people who represent the expansiveness of Black humor and gave them one directive: Be funny. In today's episode, Young talks with NPR's Juana Summers about his essay on his relationship with Invisalign. Then, Dennard Dayle's fixation with t...
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June 26, 2025 • 8 mins
In 1483, a 10-year-old peasant named John Collan is visited by a stranger who shares a life-changing piece of information. John isn't the son of a farmer, but the Duke of Clarence – and it's time for him to reclaim his destiny as king of England. Jo Harkin's novel The Pretender expands on this footnote of history from the Tudor period. In today's episode, she joins NPR's Scott Simon for a conversation that touches on her approach t...
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June 25, 2025 • 7 mins
In his new book, The Science of Revenge, James Kimmel Jr. argues that there is a human desire to get even – and it might even be an addiction. Kimmel Jr., a professor at the Yale School of Medicine, realized his own taste for retaliation as a teenager and later felt that he would benefit from a kind of "revenge rehab." In today's episode, the author tells NPR's Michel Martin that revenge lights up the same area of the brain activat...
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June 24, 2025 • 9 mins
Smith – the protagonist in Great Black Hope – is at a party in the Hamptons when he's arrested for cocaine possession. Smith is a young, Black, queer man of privilege who's floated through New York's largely white downtown social scene – but that changes when his roommate is found dead. In today's episode, author Rob Franklin joins NPR's Ayesha Rascoe to talk about his debut novel. They discuss Black respectability politics, the lo...
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June 23, 2025 • 7 mins
Historian Augustine Sedgewick became a father in the summer of 2017. At the time, media events like the Bill Cosby trial were publicly challenging ideals of masculinity and fatherhood. Motivated by care for his son, Sedgewick began to research the history of masculinity and the figure of the dad. His new book Fatherhood approaches the topic through historical examples, from figures like Aristotle and Henry VIII to the work of Sigmu...
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June 20, 2025 • 20 mins
Carl Hiaasen and John Seabrook are out with new books that draw from their personal experiences in order to tell distinctly American stories. First, many of the scenarios in the novel Fever Beach were inspired by Hiaasen's experience living in Florida. The book satirizes the white nationalist movement, following a ragtag militia that forms when its leader is kicked out of the Proud Boys. In today's episode, Hiaasen speaks with Here...
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June 19, 2025 • 12 mins
Following Donald Trump's election in 2016, New Yorker reporter Evan Osnos wanted to understand what the president's wealth and status represented in the minds of his supporters – and in American culture at large. Osnos began reporting on the lives of the ultrawealthy, including the small but growing billionaire class. Now, Osnos has published a collection of essays The Haves and Have-Yachts, which explores the American relationship...
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June 18, 2025 • 8 mins
By the early 2000s, only a handful of queer female characters had ever been featured on television. Then, The L Word entered the scene in 2004, exploring lesbian identity, friendship and sex over six seasons and a 2019 reboot. Now, two of The L Word's stars – Leisha Hailey and Kate Moennig – are out with a new memoir So Gay For You. In today's episode, the authors talk with NPR's Juana Summers about the way representation of queer ...
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June 17, 2025 • 9 mins
Joan Goodwin, an astronomer who has been in love with the stars since childhood, learns one day in 1980 that NASA is seeking the first women astronauts to join its space shuttle program. Taylor Jenkins Reid's new novel Atmosphere follows Joan as she becomes one of those astronauts, navigating new challenges, disaster, and a secret romance along the way. In today's episode, Reid speaks with NPR's Debbie Elliott about her research pr...
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June 16, 2025 • 9 mins
In 2017, Jacinda Ardern was sitting in a bathroom waiting to learn two things: whether she was going to be the prime minister of New Zealand – and whether she was pregnant. Ardern became only the second person in history to give birth while holding elected office at the top of government. And as prime minister, she had few people to turn to for advice on balancing the challenges of motherhood with leading a country. In today's epis...
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June 13, 2025 • 15 mins
Writer and professor Melissa Febos had been in a series of consecutive relationships for decades. Then, one particularly devastating experience led her to take stock of her dependency on sex and love. She says she was in "the right amount of pain" to make a change. For Febos, that period kicked off what would become a year of transformative celibacy. Her new book The Dry Season chronicles the way abstinence from sex and relationshi...
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June 12, 2025 • 7 mins
A 10-year-old girl, Louisa, and her father take a walk on breakwater in Japan, where her family is living. Louisa is later found on a beach – her father has disappeared. She and her mother are left on their own – but the tragedy doesn't bring them closer together, at least for a long time. Susan Choi's new novel Flashlight follows this family across generations and a vast historical expanse. In today's episode, Choi speaks with NPR...
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June 11, 2025 • 9 mins
The North American prairie is home to bison, elk, wolves and bald eagles – and it's disappearing at a rapid rate. In their new book Sea of Grass, writers Dave Hage and Josephine Marcotty chronicle the forces behind the loss of this ecosystem. In today's episode, they join Here & Now's Chris Bentley at a prairie outside of Chicago for a conversation about their research. They discuss the innovations in industrial agriculture that ha...
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