The Czech writer tackled big topics — sex, surveillance, death, totalitarianism — but always with a sense of humor. Blacklisted and banned in the Soviet Union, he left for France in 1975.
The works have earned Sotomayor $3.7 million since she joined the court in 2009. Her taxpayer-funded staffers have been deeply involved in organizing speaking engagements intended to sell the books.
An excellent work of people-first journalism, Donovan X. Ramsey's book offers a vivid and frank history and highlights how communities tend to save themselves even as they're being targeted.
There are overdue library books. Then there's An Elementary Treatise on Electricity, which was last checked out in Massachusetts in 1904. It finally made it back after being spotted in West Virginia.
NPR's Scott Simon remembers Ukrainian writer and poet Victoria Amelina, who was among those killed in a Russian strike at a pizza restaurant last month.
Mai Nguyen's debut novel centers on the family of Tuyet and Xuan Tran, Vietnamese refugees who settle in Toronto. It simmers with questions about work, class and generational divides.
Shoes and accessories designed by Aurora James sell for hundreds, even thousands, of dollars. In Wildflower, James details how hard it was to get here and the imbalanced economics of high fashion.
Most novels set in bookshops are heartwarming paeans to bonds forged among readers. The Door-to-Door Bookstore by Carsten Henn and Days at the Morisaki Bookshop by Satoshi Yagisawa are no exception.
As we roll into the dog days of summer, these three YA novels move beyond being beastly — as their protagonists transform into the creatures that lie within.
Ford brings his Frank Bascombe saga to an end in Be Mine, while Moore weaves together a fragmentary Civil War plot with an off-kilter vision of the afterlife in I Am Homeless If This Is Not My Home.
Actor Laura Dern and her mother Diane Ladd have always shared a profession. But when Ladd was diagnosed with lung disease, the two started sharing so much more. Their new book is Honey, Baby, Mine.
It is easy to act as if fiction and history were separate. But they cannot be completely divided. Jenny Erpenbeck's Kairos and Oksana Lutsyshyna's Ivan and Phoebe help readers connect with time past.
Each week, guests and hosts on NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour share what's bringing them joy. This week: Beware the Woman, Dungeons and Drag Queens, and the DVD menu of The Social Network.