NPR's Book of the Day - TopPodcast.com

Latest Episodes:

Author weaves family history with fiction in debut novel Aug 22, 2022

Show notes

In Belinda Huijuan Tang's debut novel, A Map For the Missing, readers can find parallels between Tang's personal history and her fiction. The book touches on family mystery, personal identity and connections between the end of China's Cultural Revolution in the 1970s up through the1990s. While talking with NPR's Ari Shapiro, Tang shares why she chose this moment in Chinese history for her novel.
See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.
NPR Privacy Policy

Mohsin Hamid and Alora Young detail the impact of colorism in their stories Aug 19, 2022

Show notes

The two books featured in this episode illustrate the impact of colorism in society. First up is The Last White Man by Mohsin Hamid. In conversation with Scott Simon, Hamid talks about his personal experience after 9/11 and how that helped shape the narrative of this novel. Next is Walking Gentry Home by Alora Young, which chronicles her family's history through nine generations of mothers in her life. Young shares with Leila Fadel about how her stories touch on her skin complexion "as a product of uninvited attention" from people who enslaved her family.
See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.
NPR Privacy Policy

Romance novelist pokes fun at genre while writing it, in 'Thank You for Listening' Aug 18, 2022

Show notes

Author and audiobook narrator Julia Whelan says narrating her own second book, Thank You for Listening, was "so meta, that it just spins off its axis." It's about a former on-camera actress who suffered a tragic event that ended her on-camera career. She's found work in narrating audiobooks and while she loves it, it isn't the same as being in front of the camera. Whelan chats with Mary Louise Kelly about how this latest novel pokes fun at romance while honoring it, and the different voices she has had to use to represent the "voice" of the book.
See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.
NPR Privacy Policy

In new memoir, Sen. Tim Scott details the second chances he's gotten Aug 17, 2022

Show notes

In an interview with NPR's Juana Summers, Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina talks about the second chances he's been given by his mother and his constituents, which he also details in his new memoir America: A Redemption Story. Scott reflects on his struggles with self image growing up, the doubts he had as a young Black man in high school, and what he wished President Trump would have done during the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.
NPR Privacy Policy

A daughter helps her mom finish her book 'Properties of Thirst' Aug 16, 2022

Show notes

Marianne Wiggins had started to write her latest book Properties of Thirst when she had a stroke in 2016. So her daughter Lara Porzak, helped her finish it. Porzak described the experience as "hard, very difficult, but beautiful." Talking to Scott Simon, both authors share how their time in the hospital and the uncertainty of the future helped complete a story about new beginnings.
See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.
NPR Privacy Policy

Criminal justice reform and resilience are central in Albert Woodfox's 'Solitary' Aug 15, 2022

Show notes

In an interview with the author of Solitary, the issue of criminal justice reform is central. Alfred Woodfox, who served 43 years in prison – most in solitary confinement, for a crime he says he didn't commit – died in August. He told NPR's Scott Simon that after his release, he struggled with claustrophobia because of the decades he spent in prison. This is an encore episode from February 2022.
See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.
NPR Privacy Policy

Nikole Hannah Jones and Adam Rubin work to make kids' books more approachable Aug 12, 2022

Show notes

Today's interviews center on children's books with wildly different topics, but they both aim to make reading more accessible for kids. Nikole Hannah Jones, working with Renee Watson, turned the 1619 Project into a picture book called Born On The Water. They told NPR their goal was "to say to young people - to young Black Americans, you belong here." Next, Adam Rubin has on his collection of short stories that are all different but share the same title: The Ice Cream Machine. Rubin told NPR's Rachel Martin that there are so many ways to tell a story. This is an encore episode from March 2022.
See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.
NPR Privacy Policy

'South To America' shows how southern history shaped our nation Aug 11, 2022

Show notes

Author Imani Perry is a child of the South. In her newest book South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation, she gives the reader a look at the South's complicated history, interwoven with her own personal anecdotes. Even though the South has a difficult history, Perry contends, it provides important context for America today. Perry told NPR's Mary Louise Kelly that in order to write this book she had to stop romanticizing the place she calls home – and, instead, look at it starkly. This is an encore episode from January 2022.
See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.
NPR Privacy Policy

Chinese American culture, murder mystery, and Dostoyevsky in 'The Family Chao' Aug 10, 2022

Show notes

Patriarch Leo Chao is murdered at his restaurant at the beginning of Lan Samantha Chang's new novel The Family Chao. Eventually family secrets and bitterness reveal themselves — much like a Dostoyevsky novel, from whom Chao took a lot of inspiration. But NPR's Scott Simon points out that even though this novel is about a murder, it's quite funny. Chang told Simon that she just enjoyed writing it so much that humor became a natural part of it. This is an encore episode from February 2022.
See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.
NPR Privacy Policy

Devon Price on self-acceptance and expression for people with autism Aug 09, 2022

Show notes

For people with autism, navigating a neurotypical world can be exhausting. Many deploy strategies to fit in with others, a tactic often referred to as masking. Social psychologist Devon Price spoke to Eric Garcia, author of Unmasking Autism, on Life Kit about the freedom that comes from unmasking. Price says neurodivergent people can find greater self-acceptance by getting in touch with the person they were before they started trying to fit in. Price and Garcia, who both have autism, talk about how unmasking means progress for disability justice. This is an encore episode from May 2022.
See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.
NPR Privacy Policy

Our TOPPODCAST Picks

Follow Us

Stay Connected

NPR’s Book of the Day

Related Podcasts

Links

Stay Connected