A true smorgasbord is on offer for readers this week. Care for an inspirational memoir? Reminders of the precarious position of civilization? Early summer read? They're all here.

Didion's book is an intimate chronicle of the author's struggle to help her daughter, even if it meant digging into her own long-unexamined neuroses.

NPR's talks with Didion date back to 1977, where the author described what she meant when she wrote "writers are always selling somebody out" in the introduction of Slouching Towards Bethlehem.

NPR's Scott Simon reflects on what a 100 year-old poem by William Butler Yeats means today.