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Books: Book Reviews, Book News, and Author Interviews NPR's brings you news about books and authors along with our picks for great reads. Interviews, reviews, and much more.

Books

The Antidote by Karen Russell; Buckeye by Patrick Ryan, The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai, Heart the Lover by Lily King, Gertrude Stein: An Afterlife by Francesca Wade Mother Mary Comes to Me by Arundhati Roy, Bread of Angels by Patti Smith, Dark Renaissance: The Dangerous Times and Fatal Genius of Shakespeare's Greatest Rival by Stephen Greenblatt, Last Seen by Judith Giesberg, A Marriage at Sea by Sophie Elmhirst
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Review

Books We Love

Maureen Corrigan's 10 favorite books of 2025 — with plenty for nonfiction lovers

Fresh Air's book critic says her picks tilt a bit to nonfiction, but the novels that made the cut redress the imbalance by their sweep and intensity. Karen Russell's The Antidote was her favorite.

FA: Maureen Corrigan’s best books of 2025

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Mel Robbins was in a 'toxic' place. She's now sharing the tools that got her out of it.

Wild Card with Rachel Martin

Mel Robbins was in a 'toxic' place. She's now sharing the tools that got her out of it.

Mel Robbins tells Rachel that she was plagued by anxiety, trauma and “relentless self-hatred” when she was younger. Now she has a bestselling book (“The Let Them Theory”) and a massively successful podcast (“The Mel Robbins Podcast”). Her hope is that she can share the tools that have helped her better herself so that other people can improve their lives.

Mel Robbins

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A dying woman chooses friends over her husband in 'Some Bright Nowhere'
Harper Collins

Review

Book Reviews

A dying woman chooses friends over her husband in 'Some Bright Nowhere'

A woman with a terminal diagnosis asks her husband to leave the house in Ann Packer's new novel. Some Bright Nowhere is an absorbing book about end-of-life care and what the living owe the dying.

FA: Book Review: Some Bright Nowhere, by Ann Packer

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Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice, a blueprint to the modern romance
Nightbloom Library

Review

Pop Culture Happy Hour

Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice, a blueprint to the modern romance

This year, readers around the world are celebrating Jane Austen’s 250th birthday. Today we’ve got an episode of NPR’s Books We’ve Loved where Linda Holmes, Andrew Limbong and B.A. Parker discuss Austen’s seminal novel Pride & Prejudice. The trio weighs in on how the romance genre continues to reference the book’s “enemies to lovers” story – and why the tale’s leads Lizzie Bennet and Mr. Darcy still make us and laugh and swoon even today.

Rereading Pride & Prejudice

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Democratic Rep. Jim Clyburn of South Carolina at Patriot Hall in Sumter, S.C.

Democratic Rep. Jim Clyburn of South Carolina at Patriot Hall in Sumter, S.C. Donaven Doughty for NPR hide caption

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Donaven Doughty for NPR

Author Interviews

In a new book, Rep. Jim Clyburn highlights the Black politicians who paved the way for him

Jim Clyburn's new book, The First Eight, restores the lives of South Carolina's early Black congressmen and shows how their battles during Reconstruction offer lessons, and warnings, for politics today.

In new book, Rep. Jim Clyburn honors the Black politicians who paved the way for him

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Books We Love: These were NPR staffers' favorite plot-driven books of 2025

NPR's Andrew Limbong talks about some of NPR staffers' favorite plot-driven books of 2025.

Books We Love: These were NPR staffers' favorite plot-driven books of 2025

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Gather 'round the table — it's time for a 'Family Feast!'
Illustrations copyright © 2025 by FRANK MORRISON / Crown Books for Young Readers

Picture This

Gather 'round the table — it's time for a 'Family Feast!'

Big Ma dashes off commands, pots clang, aunts and uncles shoot the breeze, little ones beg to lick the bowl, ham and candied yam. Family Feast! is about food, family and love.

PICTURE THIS: Family Feast

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Suleika Jaouad on the clarity that comes with illness, why grief is worth it and defiant love

Wild Card with Rachel Martin

Suleika Jaouad on the clarity that comes with illness, why grief is worth it and defiant love

Suleika Jaouad has written extensively about what it means to live in the in-between – the space between sick and healthy. She’s dealt on-and-off with cancer since her early 20s. Her latest book, "The Book of Alchemy," provides a guide on sustaining a creative practice through journaling. Suleika tells Rachel about eavesdropping on laughter and what she's learned from the people she's lost.To listen sponsor-free and support the show, sign up for Wild Card+ at plus.npr.org/wildcard

Suleika Jaouad

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Four African American women seated on steps of building at Atlanta University, Georgia in the 1890s. Photo by Thomas E. Askew

Four African American women sit on the steps of a building at Atlanta University in Georgia in this 1890s photograph by Thomas E. Askew. The image is one of the hundreds included in Reflections in Black, written and edited by scholar and NYU professor Deborah Willis. Library of Congress hide caption

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Library of Congress

Author Interviews

'Reflections in Black' celebrates history of Black photography with expanded issue

"Where are the Black photographers?" Deborah Willis on how she turned that question into an artistic mission.

'Reflections in Black' celebrates history of Black photography with expanded issue

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Author Rabih Alameddine won the Fiction prize for his novel The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother).

Author Rabih Alameddine won the Fiction prize for his novel The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother). Andy Kropa/Invision hide caption

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Andy Kropa/Invision

Here are the winners of the 2025 National Book Awards

Author Rabih Alameddine won for his novel The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother). Other winners include a book for young people about orphans on the run in Iran during World War II.

National Book Awards honor the year's most powerful stories and voices

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Cynthia Erivo attends LACMA Art+Film Gala at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art on Nov. 1, 2025.

Cynthia Erivo attends LACMA Art+Film Gala at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art on Nov. 1, 2025. Lisa O'Connor/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

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Lisa O'Connor/AFP via Getty Images

Movie Interviews

'What you see is really me,' says 'Wicked' star Cynthia Erivo

Erivo says she found parallels between her life and the experience of her Wicked character, Elphaba. Her new memoir is called Simply More: A Book for Anyone who Has Been Told They're Too Much.

FA: Cynthia Erivo

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Author Interviews

Seizures, broken spines and vomiting: Scientific testing that helped facilitate D-Day

Biomedical engineer Rachel Lance says British scientists submitted themselves to experiments that would be considered unethical today. Her book is Chamber Divers. Originally broadcast April, 10 2024.

FA: Seizures, broken spines and vomiting: Scientific testing that helped facilitate D-Day

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