Hanif Abdurraqib's latest book is about hoops, sure, but it's also about so much more. It's another remarkable book from one of the country's smartest cultural critics.
Sarah McCammon, a national political correspondent for NPR and co-host of the NPR politics podcast, is also author of a new book, The Exvangelicals: Loving, Living, and Leaving the White Evangelical Church. She spoke with GPB's Pamela Kirkland about the book and the movement of the younger generation of evangelicals away from the church.
Eric Rickstad's novel is full of sadness and rage; it forces readers to look at one of the ugliest parts of U.S. culture, a too-common occurrence that is extremely rare in other countries.
Author Nancy Nichols says that for men, cars signify adventure, power and strength. For women, they are about performing domestic duties; there was even a minivan prototype with a washer/dryer inside.
Alexandra Tanner's debut novel, Worry, centers two sisters in their 20s struggling with the love, anxieties and truths that they hold about each other.
Dune: Part Two is a marvel of cinematic wonder. Amongst all the chatter around the cinematography and lore, Brittany also noticed that there was a particular fascination with Austin Butler's accent. Butler is no stranger to a distinctive voice - he was Elvis after all. But the discourse around what makes a good or bad accent made Brittany want to revisit a conversation with New York Times reporter Kyle Buchanan. In this interview from last year, Kyle makes the case that bad accents make movies more fun.
Then, Brittany turns from bad accents to bad sex. What may feel like a personal problem is actually an indicator of bigger social issues, at least according to Nona Willis Aronowitz. Her book, Bad Sex: Truth, Pleasure, and an Unfinished Revolution, tackles the historic and systemic causes of unsatisfying sex. Brittany and Nona spoke last year about where bad sex comes from and what could be done about it.
Jordan Mechner is known for his video games. But here he brings to life the many twists and turns that underscore the pervasive impact of the past — and the connectedness that remains in the present.
After her father died when she was 24, Catherine Coldstream entered a Carmelite monastery where she lived a life of prayer and obedience for 12 years. Her new memoir is Cloistered: My Years as a Nun.
This episode is brought to you by our play cousins over at NPR's It's Been A Minute. Brittany Luse chops it up with New Yorker writer and podcast host Vinson Cunningham to discuss his debut novel Great Expectations. It's a period piece that follows the story of a young man working on an election campaign that echoes Obama's 2008 run. Brittany and Vinson discuss American politics as a sort of religion - and why belief in politics has changed so much in the last decade.
Marie Mutsuki Mockett's latest novel about a wife and mother is wise and sensitive, and a stunning reflection on how we reinvent ourselves when we're left with no other choice.
In an interview with NPR, Ford says it was only a couple of years ago that she felt ready to revisit how her life was upended by Brett Kavanaugh's rise to a position on the U.S. Supreme Court.
In a fever dream of a retelling, America's new reigning king of satire has turned a loved classic, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, upside down, placing Huck's enslaved companion Jim at the center.
Avid Bookshop has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the Gwinnett County jail’s mail policy as unconstitutional. WUGA’s Mary Ryan Howarth has more.
When Shohini Ghose was studying physics as a kid, she heard certain names repeated over and over. "Einstein, Newton, Schrodinger ... they're all men." Shohini wanted to change that — so she decided to write a book about some of the women scientists missing from her grade school physics textbooks. It's called Her Space, Her Time: How Trailblazing Women Scientists Decoded the Hidden Universe. This episode, she talks to Short Wave host Regina G. Barber about uncovering the women physicists she admires — and how their stories have led her to reflect on her own.
