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Virtual memories live in 'The Candy House' Apr 18, 2022

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It's already pretty hard to tell what's really real when it comes to social media. But Jennifer Egan takes it one step further in her latest novel The Candy House where people can upload their actual memories, and let other people live in theirs. The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Visit from the Goon Squad talked with NPR's Leila Fadel on Morning Edition about what it means to be "authentic."
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A Douglas Stuart double feature! 'Shuggie Bain' and 'Young Mungo' Apr 15, 2022

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Both interviews today are with author Douglas Stuart. The first about his Booker prize-winning Shuggie Bain; a story based on his own life growing up a queer son of a single mother struggling with addiction. He told NPR's Scott Simon that he hoped people could find comfort in this story. Next, Stuart spoke to NPR's Ari Shapiro about his new book, Young Mungo. It's a story about two boys separated by faith who end up falling in love with each other. Stuart told Shapiro that when he "write[s] about heartbreak or sadness, I'm really only doing that to make the tenderness and the love shine more."
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In 'Lessons in Chemistry,' a chemist is the star of ... a cooking show? Apr 14, 2022

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Bonnie Garmus' new novel Lessons In Chemistry has been getting a lot of buzz. 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. 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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How to manage a disaster in 'The Devil Never Sleeps' Apr 13, 2022

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Former Homeland Security official and author Juliette Kayyem has a new book out that encourages preparedness. The Devil Never Sleeps makes the case that disasters are going to happen, and gives advice on how to manage them. Kayyem told NPR's Steve Inskeep that we need to redefine our definition of success after disasters occur.
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Novel 'Four Treasures of the Sky' focuses on the horrors of the Chinese Exclusion Act Apr 12, 2022

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Author Jenny Tinghui Zhang is out with a new historical fiction novel, Four Treasures In The Sky. Set in the 1800s during the height of anti-Chinese sentiment, a young girl named Daiyu is kidnapped and brought to the U.S. Zhang told NPR's Ayesha Rascoe that she has seen a lot of reviews that refer to this book as 'timely' – and that she does not think that is a good thing when a book is about racism.
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Poet Ocean Vuong shares his grief in 'Time Is A Mother' Apr 11, 2022

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April is National Poetry Month, so to celebrate we are bringing you a conversation with poet Ocean Vuong. His new collection, Time Is A Mother, is about his grief after losing family members. Vuong told Morning Edition'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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Maud Newton and Jhumpa Lahiri interrogate one's place in the world Apr 08, 2022

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Writer Maud Newton could not ignore her family's white supremacist history, so she decided to reconcile with it in her new book Ancestor Trouble: A Reckoning and a Reconciliation. She told NPR's Ari Shapiro that she felt a responsibility to deal with her family's past. Next, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jhumpa Lahiri's book Whereabouts is about a sense of place – even though we are never told where exactly the book takes place. Lahiri told NPR's Mary Louis Kelly that we can be too fixated on who we are and where we are from, so not naming where this novel is set was freeing.
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Viet Thanh Nguyen follows Pulitzer winning 'The Sympathizer' with 'The Committed' Apr 07, 2022

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Viet Thanh Nguyen's novel The Committed follows the same unnamed character we met in his Pulitzer-winning thriller, The Sympathizer. The character is now in Paris; having become disillusioned with the revolution he was a part of when we last saw him, he hasn't given up on the idea entirely. Nguyen told NPR's Scott Simon the book is also about colonization: He "wanted it to be set in a Paris that was not the tourist Paris or the romantic Paris. [It's] a novel about French ideas and French Revolution and French colonialism, but it's also a crime thriller set in these immigrant neighborhoods."
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'The Vortex' investigates how climate catastrophes can have unexpected consequences Apr 06, 2022

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In 1970, a cyclone tore through Pakistan and the political lines that existed, leading to genocide and very nearly a nuclear war in the country. Author Scott Carney was curious about this catastrophe but also how these extreme weather events, which are only becoming more common, have political consequences. Carney told NPR's Steve Inskeep that we will almost certainly face similar problems in the future, so we should be wary of today's unstable political systems.
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'Booth' looks at the family life of President Lincoln's notorious assassin Apr 05, 2022

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Author Karen Joy Fowler thinks John Wilkes Booth craved attention – and that gotten his fair share of it. So her new novel, Booth, instead focuses on his family. Their history might surprise you, given how John turned out. His grandfather was a part of the Underground Railroad. Fowler told NPR's Scott Simon that because of all we know about Booth's family, the path that John took is one of life's great mysteries. And, no, she hasn't solved it.
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