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Fresh Air's resident book critic selects her favorite reads from the year, including Patti Smith's moving memoir, a feminist slant on election season and a new history of labor unions.

Bill Bryson is known for exploring far-flung places, but he found inspiration for his most recent book after a hike through his own old, Victorian house in England. At Home: A Short History of Private Life explores the history of domesticity — from making beds, to the long history of hallways.

Two years after opening his award-winning Chicago restaurant Alinea, chef Grant Achatz was diagnosed with tongue cancer. He describes losing and regaining his taste in Life, on the Line. "My palate developed just as a newborn," Achatz says. "I don't recommend it, but I think it made me a better chef."

NPR's Ayesha Rascoe speaks with British actor Tamara Lawrance, co-star of "The Silent Twins" - a movie about two girls who grew up speaking only to each other.

NPR's David Folkenflik speaks with director Kitty Green about her new film, "The Assistant." It's about a young woman who works for a media mogul and the degrading climate he's created at the office.

Each week, the guests and hosts on NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour share what's bringing them joy. This week: Devil in a Blue Dress, Evil, and more.

Joshua Ferris (Then We Came To The End) studies the monster within in The Unnamed. Lush language limns a Soviet childhood of privation and paranoia in A Mountain of Crumbs.

In Rawhide Down, journalist Del Quentin Wilber offers new information about the March 1981 day that President Ronald Reagan was shot in Washington, D.C. Wilber and Jerry Parr, the head of Reagan's Secret Service detail at the time of the shooting, speak with NPR's Ari Shapiro.

We all know what it's like to escape into a great work of fiction — but it's quite another leap of pleasure to get lost in a truly exotic, alternate-reality world of an author's unique creation. Critic Glen Weldon trips out on the haunted, vivid landscapes of 2010's best speculative fiction.

The Washington, D.C., gallery turns 100 this year. Susan Stamberg has fond memories of visiting back in the '60s: "It was like visiting a really rich uncle with fabulous taste and a collector's eye."