Search results for

Eunice Chapman won the first legal divorce in New York State in 1818. Her scandalous case pitted Mrs. Chapman against her abusive husband, who took their three children and joined the radical Shaker sect. NPR's Guy Raz talks to Ilyon Woo, author of a new book about the case, called The Great Divorce.

Playwright Quiara Alegria Hudes has gone back to the basics — the very basics of the ABCs. Her latest project — a children's book called Welcome To My Neighborhood! A Barrio ABC — follows a young girl who takes her best friend on an alphabetical tour through her North Philadelphia neighborhood.

Sometimes, lightning does strike twice: The latest novel by Giles Foden — author of The Last King of Scotland — is an absorbing, elegant and thoughtful read. Turbulence, which dramatizes the Allied effort to use meteorology for military gain during World War II, follows a young meteorologist who must convince a brilliant pacifist to contribute to the war effort.

In a powerful memoir, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Natasha Trethewey surveys the storm-battered landscape of the place she once called home. Beyond Katrina is a powerful meditation on things long gone that will never come back.

Writer Gary Shteyngart may have no idea what Zardoz is about, but that doesn't stop him from knowing the science-fiction novel by heart. For a nerd like him, nothing compares to the post-apocalyptic world full of floating heads and immortal beings.

Struggling with an illness that left her bedridden, Elisabeth Tova Bailey was surprised when her friend brought her a gift: a pot of flowers that also contained a wild snail. In a new memoir, Bailey describes how that nearly motionless mollusk became an unlikely companion.

Jonathan Franzen's new novel, Freedom, doesn't come out until Tuesday but The New York Times has already declared it a "masterpiece" and Time magazine has dubbed Franzen a "Great American Novelist." The book has gotten so much attention in the media that it's led to accusations of both gender and genre bias among the literary elite.

In autumn, the publishing industry kicks into high gear, rolling out "big books" — the titles that publishers hope readers will buy through the all-important holiday season. NPR's Lynn Neary follows the path of Emma Donoghue's novel, Room, a book that has generated some serious buzz.

Fall fiction blows in with Nick Hornby's novel of a music-obsessed British lad and his sensible girlfriend, E.L. Doctorow's romp through the 20th century with the highborn but hoarding Collyer brothers, Jeannette Walls' scrappy bush-pilot grandmother, and more.

Kevin Huizenga's alter-ego Glenn Ganges returns in his latest collection of spiky, intellectually adventurous stories — drawn in friendly, stylized art. The Wild Kingdom is like entries from the Encyclopedia Britannica of an alternate, funnier universe.