NPR's Book of the Day - TopPodcast.com

Latest Episodes:

Susan Choi’s 'Flashlight' is about an alternate-universe version of her own family Jan 02, 2026

Show notes

As 2025 comes to a close, we're revisiting interviews with this year's nominees and winners of some of the biggest prizes in literature. Last up: A 10-year-old girl, Louisa, is later found on a beach in Japan – and 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 novel Flashlight follows this family across generations and a vast historical expanse. In today’s episode, Choi speaks with NPR’s Scott Simon about why her protagonist fends off love, her interest in the historical tensions between Korea and Japan, and the benefit of writing in chronological order.
To listen to Book of the Day sponsor-free and support NPR's book coverage, sign up for Book of the Day+ at plus.npr.org/bookoftheday
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

'Feeding Ghosts' is a graphic memoir grappling with generational trauma Jan 01, 2026

Show notes

As 2025 comes to a close, we're revisiting interviews with this year's nominees and winners of some of the biggest prizes in literature. Tessa Hulls’ grandmother, Sun Yi, was a dissident journalist in Shanghai who faced intense political persecution during the Chinese Communist Revolution. In today’s episode, Hulls tells Here & Now’s Scott Tong that her grandmother’s trauma often cast a shadow over their family – one she decided to finally face in her new graphic memoir, Feeding Ghosts. It’s a reexamining of Hulls’ matriarchal lineage, of Chinese history and of generational love and healing.
To listen to Book of the Day sponsor-free and support NPR's book coverage, sign up for Book of the Day+ at plus.npr.org/bookoftheday
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 ‘A Guardian and a Thief,’ a mother’s love for her family threatens her own morals Dec 31, 2025

Show notes

As 2025 comes to a close, we're revisiting interviews with this year's nominees and winners of some of the biggest prizes in literature. Megha Majumdar’s novel A Guardian and a Thief, a finalist for the 2025 National Book Award, takes place in a near-future Kolkata struck by climate change. There, one family’s possibility of escape is put in jeopardy when their passports are stolen. In this conversation with Here & Now, Majumdar tells Jane Clayson that hope isn’t always noble in situations of crisis.
To listen to Book of the Day sponsor-free and support NPR's book coverage, sign up for Book of the Day+ at plus.npr.org/bookoftheday
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 new novel from Karen Russell is a sprawling story set during the Dust Bowl Dec 30, 2025

Show notes

As 2025 comes to a close, we're revisiting interviews with this year's nominees and winners of some of the biggest prizes in literature. Karen Russell’s novel The Antidote is set during the Dust Bowl – a period when poor farming practices and drought led to a wave of severe and damaging dust storms. In this bleak setting, we’re introduced to a cast of characters, including a woman who stores other people’s memories and a photographer tasked with documenting the crisis. In today’s episode, Russell speaks with NPR’s Scott Simon about the inspiration behind The Antitode’s core characters, including the work of photographer Gordon Parks and an image that came to Russell as she finished her first novel.
To listen to Book of the Day sponsor-free and support NPR's book coverage, sign up for Book of the Day+ at plus.npr.org/bookoftheday
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 Rabih Alameddine’s new novel, a mother and son share a tiny Beirut apartment Dec 29, 2025

Show notes

As 2025 comes to a close, we're revisiting interviews with this year's nominees and winners of some of the biggest prizes in literature. First up: Raja teaches philosophy to high schoolers and shares an apartment with his 82-year-old mother, Zalfa. Rabih Alameddine explores their relationship – and other forms of intimacy – in his new novel The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother). In today’s episode, the author joins NPR’s Scott Simon for a conversation about Raja’s self-deprecation, Zalfa’s relationship with another older woman, and Alameddine’s mother’s memory loss.
To listen to Book of the Day sponsor-free and support NPR's book coverage, sign up for Book of the Day+ at plus.npr.org/bookoftheday
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

Dorie Greenspan and Paul Hollywood discuss their new and nourishing cake cookbooks Dec 26, 2025

Show notes

If you’re feeling burnt out from your annual holiday cookie-baking marathon, don’t fear. There’s hope on the other side… in the form of cake. In today’s episode, Here and Now's Robin Young speaks with two authors and bakers about their newest cookbooks focused on cake. First, she joins Dorie Greenspan to discuss Dorie’s Anytime Cakes, a beginner-friendly collection of comforting cake recipes. Then, Young talks with The Great British Baking Show’s Paul Hollywood about Celebrate, his volume of cakes meant to inspire joyful, low-stakes baking with the whole family.
To listen to Book of the Day sponsor-free and support NPR's book coverage, sign up for Book of the Day+ at plus.npr.org/bookoftheday
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

'Unabridged' explores the history of the dictionary – and why it’s in trouble now Dec 25, 2025

Show notes

Dictionaries were once bestsellers, but between the internet and artificial intelligence, its role in our culture has changed. Stefan Fatsis is out with a new book called Unabridged: The Thrill of (and Threat to) The Modern Dictionary, which documents this shift. In today’s episode, he speaks with NPR’s Don Gonyea about embedding with the publisher of Merriam Webster, the history of lexicography, and what he anticipates for the dictionary’s future.
To listen to Book of the Day sponsor-free and support NPR's book coverage, sign up for Book of the Day+ at plus.npr.org/bookoftheday
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

'Hiddensee' is a 'Nutcracker'-inspired novel from the author of 'Wicked' Dec 24, 2025

Show notes

In 2017, Wicked author Gregory Maguire set out to tell the backstory of another classic fairytale. His novel Hiddensee focuses on Herr Drosselmeyer, the powerful toymaker in The Nutcracker. In today’s episode, we revisit a conversation between Maguire and then-NPR host Lulu Garcia-Navarro. Maguire tells Garcia-Navarro about his interest in writing a Nutcracker prequel, giving people “consolation” through literature, and his personal collection of nutcrackers.
To listen to Book of the Day sponsor-free and support NPR's book coverage, sign up for Book of the Day+ at plus.npr.org/bookoftheday
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

Jeff Kinney on his iconic, now 20-book 'Diary of a Wimpy Kid' series Dec 23, 2025

Show notes

Jeff Kinney’s Diary of a Wimpy Kid series has sold more than 300 million books since the first installment was published in 2007. The star of the series is the famous line drawing, Greg Heffley, a frequently frowning, middle-school-aged antihero. Now, Kinney is out with Partypooper, the 20th book in the series. In today’s episode, Here & Now’s Robin Young travels to An Unlikely Story in Plainville, Massachusetts, the bookstore Kinney owns with his wife. There, Young and Kinney discuss the inspiration behind Greg, whom Kinney says is a “funhouse” version of himself.
To listen to Book of the Day sponsor-free and support NPR's book coverage, sign up for Book of the Day+ at plus.npr.org/bookoftheday
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

Mahmood Mamdani’s 'Slow Poison' centers politics of belonging in postcolonial Uganda Dec 22, 2025

Show notes

Mahmood Mamdani — a professor of government at Columbia University and the father of Zohran Mamdani, NYC’s next mayor — has spent decades researching colonialism and its effects on the African continent. His work is both political and personal, influenced by his own experience in Uganda as an exiled citizen deemed nonindigenous by colonial structures. In today’s episode, Mamdani talks to NPR’s Leila Fadel about his newest book, Slow Poison, an account of colonial legacy in Uganda, the rise of the country’s modern autocrats, and the politics of belonging that surround it all.
To listen to Book of the Day sponsor-free and support NPR's book coverage, sign up for Book of the Day+ at plus.npr.org/bookoftheday
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