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'The Rachel Incident' looks back on early-20s friendships, love and mistakes Jul 24, 2023

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The new 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 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 that the novel be told from an older Rachel's perspective, reflecting on her youth.
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Dennis Lehane and Jake Tapper pen new novels set in the 1970s Jul 21, 2023

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Today's episode takes us back in time to American society in the '70s. First, NPR's Scott Simon speaks with author Dennis Lehane about Small Mercies, his new novel about the desegregation of Boston public schools and a mother's plight to find her missing daughter during that time. Then, Simon chats with CNN anchor Jake Tapper about his book All the Demons Are Here, a family drama that involves a U.S. marine, a journalist, and their politician father making sense of post-Vietnam and post-Watergate disillusionment.
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'The Apartment' follows the residents of a Miami Beach building over decades Jul 20, 2023

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Ana Menéndez's novel The Apartment starts decades – maybe centuries – before the art deco building named The Helena is built in South Beach, and ends eons into the future. What takes place in apartment 2B in the in-between is where her story lives. From a Cuban concert pianist to a refugee, Menéndez dives into who lives at The Helena and how their time there shapes them. In today's episode, she tells NPR's Ari Shapiro why she wanted time to become its own character in the book, which she spent more than a decade writing.
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'When Crack Was King' chronicles the misunderstood history of the crack epidemic Jul 19, 2023

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In his new nonfiction book, When Crack Was King, Donovan X. Ramsey explores how the crack cocaine epidemic of the '80s and '90s shaped people, neighborhoods and entire communities, particularly for Black and low-income folks. He writes portraits of those who struggled with addiction, those who sold the drug, and those who tackled policy and decriminalization. In today's episode, Ramsey tells NPR's Ayesha Rascoe why he wanted to dispel the myth of the "superpredator," and how societal views on addiction changed once people of color were no longer the face of it.
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'Ripe' tackles the dark side of Silicon Valley Jul 18, 2023

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Cassie, the main character of Sarah Rose Etter's novel Ripe, has hit a wall. She's burned out at her toxic Silicon Valley job, she's disillusioned by the staggering wealth and poverty that surround her at the same time, and she's struggling with depression and anxiety. In today's episode, Etter tells NPR's Juana Summers how Cassie's experience parallels some of her own time working for a start-up and why girlbossing her way out of her problems isn't an option for Cassie.
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'Temple Folk' conveys the experiences of Black Muslims through short stories Jul 17, 2023

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Early in today's episode, Aaliyah Bilal says she knows that a lot of people associate the Nation of Islam with hate. But in her new collection of short stories, Temple Folk, she reclaims narratives about Black Muslims and how they contemplate faith, identity and community in the U.S. She tells NPR's Scott Detrow why it was especially important for her to center women's stories and how her characters contend with some of the complexities of the movement.
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A Douglas Stuart double feature! 'Shuggie Bain' and 'Young Mungo' Jul 14, 2023

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Both interviews today are with author Douglas Stuart. The first is 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? Jul 13, 2023

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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' Jul 12, 2023

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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 Jul 11, 2023

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Author Jenny Tinghui Zhang is out with a new historical fiction novel, Four Treasures of 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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