NPR's Book of the Day

The nameless narrator in author Claire-Louise Bennett's new novel, Checkout 19, absolutely loves books. Their mere presence puts her at ease. But her lifelong love of reading is, in part, because she feels let down by the people around her. Bennett told NPR's Scott Simon that loving to read is amazing, but there's a danger in always living other's experiences before having some of your own.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

Can you belong to more than one home? Author Melissa Fu sets out to answer that question in her debut novel Peach Blossom Spring. The story of the Peach Blossom Spring was first told by a poet over one thousand years ago: A fisherman stumbles upon a paradise of peach trees and has to decide whether to abandon his old life and stay in this beautiful place or go back home. That is the same predicament that Fu's main character Renshu faces. Fu told NPR's Ailsa Chang that it's hard to live in two cultures but she wouldn't have it any other way.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

Author Azar Nafisi has written a love letter to literature and reading in Read Dangerously: The Subversive Power of Literature in Troubled Times. She does this in a series of letters to her late father who passed on in 2004. Nafisi says that reading can help us really live and also help us, and has helped her, survive challenging times. Nafisi told NPR's Scott Simon that literature's purpose is to let us experience new worlds: "to come out of yourself, and join the other."See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

Our books today give the reader a peek into showbiz. Sarah Polley was a child actor but that led to her being put into many dangerous situations, which she details in her new memoir, Run Toward The Danger. She told NPR's Sacha Pfeiffer that she's not sure kids should be acting in a professional environment at all. Next, Isaac Butler deep dives into method acting in his new book The Method: How the Twentieth Century Learned to Act. Butler told NPR's Scott Simon that method acting can create some beautiful performances but it's not an excuse to be terrible.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

At the center of author Naima Coster's novel What's Mine & Yours are two struggling mothers. Jade is a Black single mother who is trying to provide a better life for her son, and Lacey May is a white mother who is trying to give her daughters the life she never had. Their stories will intertwine over decades, starting with when Lacey May opposes the integration of her daughters' school – the same school Jade is trying to get her son into. Coster told NPR's Audie Cornish that fiction gives us a window into other people's lives but that does not mean we have to condone their actions.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

Somali British poet Warsan Shire has had many projects, including running a popular Tumblr page and collaborating with Beyoncé. Now, she is out with a new collection of poems called Bless The Daughter Raised By A Voice In Her Head. That title is an ode to how she was raised, having to take on a lot of responsibility from a young age. But Shire told NPR's Sarah McCammon that it's also an ode to the children who are able to turn those voices into their friends instead of struggling with them as she has.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

Author NoViolet Bulawayo's new novel Glory is quite openly based on Orwell's Animal Farm and the 2017 coup in Zimbabwe that ousted then president Robert Mugabe. Horses rule the country, dogs are the military, cows, goats, sheep, and pigs are the everyday people. The government that has been in control of the country Jidada for 40 years has fallen to rebellion. But, as these things go, it quickly turns sour. Bulawayo told NPR's Scott Simon that "it is simply an issue of the leadership kind of forgetting [...] why the people they – that fought to serve – made the sacrifice that they did."See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

The former attorney general under former President Trump, William Barr, is out with a new memoir called One Damn Thing After Another. In it, he agrees with President Trump on many things: modern day culture wars and that the progressives are dividing the country. But Barr also gives his own version of the events of the Trump White House and disagrees with the former president about the "stolen election." Barr told NPR's Steve Inskeep "after the election, [Trump] didn't seem to listen to anybody except a group of sycophants who were telling him what he wanted to hear."See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

Our interviews today are both children's books and even though they are about wildly different topics, they both aim to make reading more accessible for kids. Nikole Hannah Jones, with the help of Renee Watson, has turned the 1619 Project into a picture book called Born On The Water. They told NPR their goal was "to say to young people - to young Black Americans, you belong here." Next, Adam Rubin has written a collection of short stories that are all different but have the same title: The Ice Cream Machine. Rubin told NPR's Rachel Martin that there are so many ways to tell a story.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

Author Bernardine Evaristo wrote the Booker prize winning novel Girl, Woman, Other. But before she did, like way before, she was incredibly unsure of herself or how she - as someone with a Black father and white mother - fit into her mostly white town. Even still, Evaristo always knew she had something important to say. She lays out those early struggles and how she overcame them in her new memoir, Manifesto: On Never Giving Up. Evaristo told NPR's Michel Martin that she has always been a private person but sharing so many of her secrets for the reader was very liberating.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy