NPR's Book of the Day

To recognize Black History Month, Book of the Day is digging into the archives to bring you some important interviews. In 1977, author Alex Haley told NPR he didn't want to put the main character of Roots, Kunta Kinte, on a slave ship. To prepare for writing that portion of the novel, Haley flew to Africa and caught a voyage home on a cargo ship — sneaking down into the hold after dinner. In the mornings, he would write notes about what he thought Kunta's experience would have been like. He told NPR's Marty Griffen that the experience weighed him down so much it nearly cost him his life.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

As part of Black History Month, we are running interviews from our archives. The Color Purple is about the survival of Black women in a male-dominated world. Author Alice Walker said that she just wrote what happens in the real world. At its core, this is a story of women loving and helping other women. Walker told NPR's Faith Fancher that "one of the reasons I wanted to have strong, beautiful, wonderful women loving each other is because I think that people can deal with that. [...] I think that the people who are uptight and bigoted and afraid in their own lives will have difficulty."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

For the first full week of Black History Month, we dove into our archives to bring you some older interviews by Black authors. The first is an interview from 2009 with writer Toni Morrison about a collection she edited from authors facing censorship called Burn This Book. This conversation is especially relevant today with many important books under scrutiny – and being pulled from library shelves and school curriculums. Morrison, whose books have also been banned in some places as recently as this year, told NPR's Liane Hansen that in some countries censorship can be far more serious.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 first interview today is with debut novelist Lizzie Damilola Blackburn about her book, Yinka, Where is Your Huzband? The protagonist Yinka is constantly being hounded by her family to get married. But Damilola Blackburn tells NPR's Sarah McCammon that learning to love oneself first can be important. The second interview is with award-winning writer Edmund White who is out with a new book about sex. A Previous Life follows a couple – they are writing to each other about their romantic pasts. White told NPR's Scott Simon that though the book might offend some, he has always written this 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

Historian Yuval Noah Harari wrote a book back in 2015 that looked at the entirety of human history; from hunter-gatherers to space exploration. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind packs all of this into a mere 400 pages. Harari noted to NPR's Arun Rath that humans have done a great job cultivating power – but where we tend to fall short is translating that power into happiness.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 Imani Perry is a child of the South. In her newest book South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation, she gives the reader a look at the South's complicated history, interwoven with her own personal anecdotes. Even though the South has a difficult history, Perry contends, it provides important context for America today. Perry told NPR's Mary Louise Kelly that in order to write this book she had to stop romanticizing the place she calls home – and, instead, look at it starkly.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 Jabari Asim is out with a new novel called Yonder. The story follows a group of enslaved men and women who are forced to work on a plantation by day but dream together about freedom – and what's beyond the world they know – at night. Asim told NPR's Sacha Pfeiffer that he always writes with his ancestors looking over his shoulder: "I feel like I have a responsibility to honor that legacy of labor and sacrifice by doing the best I can and to take what it is that I do very seriously."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

After getting his Ph.D., writer Jonathan Malesic struck out in this search for an academic job, so he took a position as a parking attendant across the street from his alma mater. He's had a myriad of jobs since then but Malesic told NPR's Michel Martin that he's never been happier because he was able to maintain such a stark work-life balance. Malesic's new book, The End of Burnout: Why Work Drains Us and How to Build Better Lives, is about how to maintain that balance in any job. And he reminds us that even your dream job is still just a job.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

Two collections of short stories, both alike in playfulness in our fair podcast. The first is with Gwen Kirby whose debut collection of short stories is called, hilariously, Shit Cassandra Saw. It ranges from radioactive cockroaches to tapdancing Twizzlers. Kirby told NPR's Mary Louise Kelly that writing this book was a cathartic experience. The second interview is with Helen Oyeyemi about her collection of short stories, What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours. The stories are fairy tales, though not traditional ones. Oyeyemi told NPR's Steve Inskeep that she likes fairy tales because they endure.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

Maggy Krell is a former California prosecutor who was on the team that took down the infamous sex trafficking site Blackpage back in 2018. Now, she's out with a new book about how they were able to get the website shuttered – and the challenges the team on the case now faces going forward. Reflecting on her time as a prosecutor, Krell told Morning Edition's Rachel Martin that this is the case she's proud of: "This was a case that shifted the national narrative and certainly sent a message to survivors that this shouldn't be normalized, that their experiences matter."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