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After the Sept. 11 attacks, author Michael Levy joined the Peace Corps. He was sent to China's poorest province, where he struggled to keep kosher and discovered that locals view religion and patriotism in ways many Americans do not expect. Levy discusses his experience with host Michel Martin.

Andrzej Stasiuk brings wise eyes and an immense curiosity to the forgotten corners of Europe in On the Road to Babadag.

In his new book, Tomatoland, food writer Barry Estabrook details the life of the mass-produced tomato — and the environmental and human costs of the tomato industry. Today's tomatoes, he says, are bred for shipping and not for taste.

Cartoonist Jim Woodring is at the top of his darkly delightful game in his new graphic novel Congress of the Animals, a surreal fable featuring strange creatures that sting, bite, drip, ooze and squelch.

Samuel Morse, best known as the inventor of the telegraph, was also an accomplished painter. His masterpiece, Gallery of the Louvre, was a composite painting of Italian Renaissance works he created as a way to bring the culture of Europe home to America.

If a fancy vacation won't fit into the summer budget this year, a good book can take you on a journey instead. Salon.com book critic Laura Miller shares her top picks for books that can take you to new places and cultures. And Bharati Mukherjee takes us on a trip to South Asia with Miss New India.

In The Steal, Rachel Shteir examines the cultural history and economic impact of shoplifting, an activity that 10 percent of all U.S. citizens admit to trying at one point or another.

Drinking didn't stop in the United States from 1920 to 1933 — it just went underground. Author Daniel Okrent discusses the lasting cultural and political impact of Prohibition in his book, Last Call.

After poet and critic Meghan O'Rourke's mother died of cancer at 55, she worked through her grief by writing. Her memoir combines the "exquisitely personal" with research of other cultures' mourning rituals that don't ignore suffering.

T.C. Boyle's new novel, When The Killing's Done, follows prescient environmental quarrels in Santa Barbara between an environmentalist and a biologist — but the bureaucratic bickering pales in comparison to the ferocious powers of nature.