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In honor of National Poetry Month, former poet laureate Robert Pinsky shares the work of one of his favorite writers, Alan Dugan, who died in 2003. Pinksy says Dugan was an amusing, soulful and engagingly nasty poet who sang the truth — often with a splash of high-grade vinegar.

In 1992, a cargo ship container tumbled into the North Pacific, dumping 28,800 toys into the ocean. What happened to those toys led writer Donovan Hohn on a worldwide journey filled with beachcombers, oceanographers, ship captains and environmentalists.

Fifty years ago Sunday, a brigade of around 1,500 CIA-trained soldiers stormed the beach in Cuba's Bay of Pigs. It was the opening phase of a secret mission to overthrow Fidel Castro. Of course, things didn't go as planned, and the lessons learned could apply to U.S. foreign policy today.

David Foster Wallace committed suicide in 2008, leaving behind one of the brightest literary legacies of his generation. His triumph, Infinite Jest, remains his best-known work, but now, a new unfinished novel, The Pale King, has emerged from notes and drafts. And it is worth the read.

As a culmination of our March NPR Book Club reading of Cutting for Stone, we spoke to author Abraham Verghese, a doctor and writer, about his bestselling novel.

Novelists Aimee Bender and Adam Ross both use food as a key to the nuances of family and marriage, while historian Alison Weir and comic writer Seth Grahame-Smith rip some bodices. In nonfiction, Jeff Goodell explores the controversy over geoengineering as a solution to climate change.

Dana Spiotta's third novel follows two adult siblings and the adolescent fantasies that define — and confine — them.

From her late-night talk show on E! television to her best-selling memoirs Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang and Are You There, Vodka? It's Me Chelsea to her brand-new publishing imprint, Chelsea Handler has created a brand that larger audiences are starting to trust.

The History Channel star details how he became an expert in customer relations, human behavior, antiques, economics — and spotting fake Rolexes — while running his family's Las Vegas pawn shop.

Wednesday markets the 50th anniversary of the start of the Freedom Rides, when an integrated group of Civil Rights activists rode together by bus through the deep South challenging integration. Historian Raymond Arsenault recounts their journey in Freedom Riders.