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Jhumpa Lahiri questions Italian identity in 'Roman Stories' Oct 30, 2023

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Roman Stories, the new collection of short stories by Jhumpa Lahiri, captures the tensions of a rapidly-changing Rome, Italy. In today's episode, Lahiri speaks with NPR's Leila Fadel about how growing up as the daughter of immigrants in the U.S. and later moving to Italy as an adult has complicated ideas of home and belonging for her – and how ultimately, home might be of a mental state rather than a physical place.
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Books about Olympic rowers and J. Robert Oppenheimer re-examine American history Oct 27, 2023

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Today's episode is about two books that examine the United States' relationship with other countries during contentious moments in history. First, Here & Now's Robin Young speaks with Daniel James Brown about his book, The Boys in the Boat, which profiles the American rowing team that beat Germany during the 1936 Olympics. George Clooney's film adaptation comes out later this year. Then, NPR's Frank Stasio chats with Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin about American Prometheus, the biography of J. Robert Oppenheimer behind this summer's blockbuster.
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After three decades, John Grisham follows 'The Firm' with 'The Exchange' Oct 26, 2023

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We can't do a week about books turned into films without speaking with John Grisham. In today's episode, the author of The Pelican Brief and The Innocent Man speaks with our host Andrew Limbong about writing a follow-up to his hit The Firm after three decades. The Exchange follows lawyer Mitch McDeere's work across the globe – and on a pro bono case. Here, Grisham gets frank about how his trust in the justice system has changed, and how his views on Hollywood have, too.
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'The Color Purple' is about the bonding of women Oct 25, 2023

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The Color Purple is about the survival of Black women in a male-dominated world. Author Alice Walker said that she just wrote what happens in the real world. The book has been made into a film and a Broadway musical already – now it's being turned into a new musical film. In 1982, Walker told former NPR reporter Faith Fancher that "one of the reasons I wanted to have strong, beautiful, wonderful women loving each other is because I think that people can deal with that. [...] I think that the people who are uptight and bigoted and afraid in their own lives will have difficulty."
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Isabel Wilkerson argues that 'Caste,' not racism caused The Great Migration Oct 24, 2023

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Isabel Wilkerson followed her novel about The Great Migration, The Warmth of Other Suns, with another book that looks at why it happened. Caste – recently made into a film by director Ava DuVernay – argues that caste and not racism is actually what Black people were fleeing when they left the Jim Crow South. Wilkerson told Throughline's Ramtin Arablouei and Rund Abdelfatah that the term racism is rooted in hate but caste is about "power and how those other groups manage and navigate and seek to survive in a society that's created with this ranked hierarchy."
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'Killers of the Flower Moon' traces the murders of Osage families Oct 23, 2023

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This week, we're hearing from authors whose works have been adapted to the big screen. In this 2017 interview, NPR's Steve Inskeep asks David Grann about his nonfiction book Killers of the Flower Moon, which recounts how white settlers conspired to kill members of the Osage Nation in the 1920s in order to take over their oil-rich land in Oklahoma. The story – which also involves the FBI's first major homicide investigation – is at the center of Martin Scorsese's latest film.
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Two poetry collections find beauty in unexpected places Oct 20, 2023

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Poet Franny Choi knows that marginalized communities have been facing apocalypses forever. But in her new book, The World Keeps Ending and the World Goes On, she uses their survival as a way to look forward. In this episode, she tells NPR's Leila Fadel how understanding that pain and resilience can ultimately be a source of hope. Then, former U.S. poet laureate Billy Collins discusses his new collection of very short poems, Musical Tables, with NPR's Scott Simon – and gets into the complexities of how sometimes saying less can offer so much more.
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'My People' is a collection of stories – spanning decades – about Black America Oct 19, 2023

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Charlayne Hunter-Gault is a trailblazing journalist. The first Black reporter for The New Yorker's "Talk of the Town" section, she's spent more than a half-century reporting on the lives of Black Americans. Her newest book, My People, is a collection of pieces written throughout her career that provide a nuanced look at Black communities across the U.S. In this episode, she speaks to NPR's Michel Martin about how our country's understanding of race has changed since she first began working as a journalist, but how some things – like the bans on books by certain authors – kind of stay the same.
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In 'Cursed Bunny,' horror takes unexpected forms Oct 18, 2023

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Bora Chung's collection of short stories, Cursed Bunny, jumps across different characters and genres, but there's something a little sinister in nearly all of them. In this episode, Chung speaks to NPR's Ayesha Rascoe about how bodily autonomy, social stigma and cultural norms played a big part in one particular horror story – which is actually rooted in something the author experienced in real life.
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'Fatty Fatty Boom Boom' details a lifelong relationship with food and body image Oct 17, 2023

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When Rabia Chaudry's family moved from Pakistan to the U.S., her parents fully embraced the processed foods lining the grocery store aisles. But as the author and attorney got older, she began to associate eating with shame and secrecy. Her new memoir, Fatty Fatty Boom Boom, recounts how her outlook on food changed as she understood her own mom's eating patterns. In this episode, Chaudry tells NPR's Ayesha Rascoe how she eventually started healing – so much so that she reclaimed her childhood nickname for the title of her book.
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