Books

A white Illinois teen attaches himself to a regiment of Black Union soldiers in the satirical Civil War novel "How to Dodge a Cannonball." NPR's Ayesha Rascoe talks with author Dennard Dayle about it.

Reporter Kevin Sack's new book is a history of Charleston's Emanuel AME Church, the oldest Black congregation in the South, where a white supremacist killed nine worshippers a decade ago.

NPR's Mary Louise talks with Chris Chibnall, author of Death at the White Hart.

NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with authors Kelly Corrigan and Claire Corrigan Lichty about their new book Marianne the Maker.

Donika Kelly wrote part of her new poetry collection, "The Natural Order of Things," during her first year of teaching, at a time when U.S. drone strikes in military conflicts were killing civilians.

NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks to author Peter Swanson about his new mystery novel, Kill Your Darlings, which explores the reasons behind a poet's act of murder against her own husband.

In her new memoir, Jong-Fast writes that her mother, Erica Jong — who penned the 1973 feminist novel Fear of Flying — had become addicted to fame and couldn't bear losing it.

In "Great Black Hope," a young, gay, Black man is reeling even before his socialite roommate is found dead. NPR's Ayesha Rascoe asks Rob Franklin about race, class, addiction, and his debut novel.

NPR's Debbie Elliott talks with Taylor Jenkins Reid about the lives of the first women astronauts as imagined in her new novel, "Atmosphere."

NPR's Ari Shapiro talks with John Seabrook about his book The Spinach King: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty, which tells the story of his family's frozen vegetable empire.