Books

The classic Italian children's book The Adventures of Cipollino was translated into English for the first time last year. The book has a surprising backstory in the former Soviet Union.

Historian Elizabeth Stordeur Pryor spent years researching the racial slur, but never revealed that her father was the legendary comic who used it profusely. Her new book is Something We Said.

San Diego-based chef Claudette Zepeda's new cookbook takes inspiration from her childhood living on the border between Mexico and the United States.

NPR's Steve Inskeep talks to Theo Baker, whose college newspaper investigation brought down Stanford University's president in 2023. Baker's new book on education and power is "How to Rule the World."

Ayesha talks to authors Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray about the prosecutor and the madam who join forces against the mob in their new historical novel "A Pair of Aces".

When she fled Cuba, Ada Ferrer's mother took only one of her two children. In her new memoir, Keeper of My Kin, Ferrer grapples with that decision's reverberations across generations of her family.

NPR's Scott Simon talks with "Hamnet" author Maggie O'Farrell, whose new novel, "Land," draws on her own family's history with Ireland's Great Famine.

"The End of Romance" follows a woman who finally leaves a restrictive and emotionally abusive marriage and crafts a new philosophy about life.

Isaac Fitzgerald, author of Dirtbag, Massachusetts, grew up with tales of local townie Johnny Appleseed. So when he found himself in need of a long, mind-clearing walk, he traced the legend's path.

The book centers around Wilbur Budd, a successful businessman who, after his death, finds himself taking a train to revisit formative moments in his life.