Episodios

  • With 'Rabbit Moon,' Jennifer Haigh chooses Shanghai as the backdrop to family tragedy

    With 'Rabbit Moon,' Jennifer Haigh chooses Shanghai as the backdrop to family tragedy
    May 1 2025
    Jennifer Haigh's latest novel Rabbit Moon opens with a hit and run accident in pre-dawn Shanghai. The victim is a 22-year-old American woman named Lindsey. Her parents immediately fly into Shanghai while Lindsey's sister awaits news from a New England summer camp – and the accident scars an already-fractured family. In today's episode, Haigh speaks with Here & Now's Scott Tong about their impressions of Shanghai, her interest in turning the idea of studying abroad on its head, and how she approached the topic of international adoption.

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    10 m
  • In 'Putin's Revenge,' Lucian Kim traces the lead-up to Russia's invasion of Ukraine

    In 'Putin's Revenge,' Lucian Kim traces the lead-up to Russia's invasion of Ukraine
    Apr 30 2025
    For more than 20 years, Lucian Kim covered Russia and Ukraine as a journalist. Now, the former NPR reporter is out with a new book that aims to explain the confluence of personal and geopolitical motivations that led to Russia's 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Putin's Revenge identifies key moments in the decades leading up to the invasion, including the 2004 Orange Revolution, George W. Bush's support of NATO membership for Ukraine, and Russia's 2014 seizure of Crimea. In today's episode, Kim talks with Here & Now's Robin Young about several turning points in the conflict, the evolution of Putin's position towards the West and Ukraine, and why Kim was initially drawn to cover Russia as a story of a collapsed empire.

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    12 m
  • Katie Kitamura's 'Audition' is a puzzle, but she says it's not meant to be solved

    Katie Kitamura's 'Audition' is a puzzle, but she says it's not meant to be solved
    Apr 29 2025
    In a Manhattan restaurant, the narrator of Audition meets a young man for lunch. Everyone has a different understanding of the pair's relationship, including the narrator herself. Katie Kitamura says she got the idea for the story after coming across a headline that said, "a stranger told me he was my son." That headline turned into the premise for her latest novel, which experiments with the idea of contradictions to destabilizing effect. In today's episode, Kitamura joins NPR's Ari Shapiro for a conversation about her decision to cut the book in half. They also discuss other media that's split into two parts – like the films Vertigo and Shoplifters – and Shapiro shares his interpretation of the novel.

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    9 m
  • Emily Henry's latest novel 'Great Big Beautiful Life' explores love beyond romance

    Emily Henry's latest novel 'Great Big Beautiful Life' explores love beyond romance
    Apr 28 2025
    Known for books like Beach Read and People We Meet on Vacation, Emily Henry is the patron saint of millennial romance. But for her latest novel, the author says she wanted to challenge herself in a new way. Great Big Beautiful Life is a story within a story about two journalists who are competing to write the biography of a fictional media heiress. There's romance at the center of the novel, but the story also follows a century-long family drama. In today's episode, Henry speaks with NPR's Miles Parks about braiding these two plots together, her interest in mother-daughter relationships, and grief as the flipside of love.

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    9 m
  • Zadie Smith looks back at her debut novel 'White Teeth' 25 years after its release

    Zadie Smith looks back at her debut novel 'White Teeth' 25 years after its release
    Apr 25 2025
    Zadie Smith's White Teeth marked its 25th anniversary in January. The now canonical novel tells the story of an unlikely friendship between a shy Englishman named Archie Jones and his friend Samad Iqbal, a devout Bengali Muslim. Both men are trying to pass on their religious and moral beliefs to their children. In today's episode, we revisit a conversation between Smith and NPR's Liane Hansen that aired shortly after White Teeth's release. Then, we'll hear some of Smith's conversation last month on NPR's Wild Card with Rachel Martin in which Smith reflects on the novel's anniversary. The two discuss the author's distance from the person she was when she wrote White Teeth and the novel's place among the canon of books for teenagers.

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    15 m
  • 'Happy Land' was inspired by a real-life kingdom of formerly enslaved people

    'Happy Land' was inspired by a real-life kingdom of formerly enslaved people
    Apr 24 2025
    When Nikki travels to visit her grandmother in western North Carolina, she expects answers about her family's history. But instead, she uncovers her connection to the Kingdom of the Happy Land, a community of formerly enslaved people. Dolen Perkins-Valdez's new novel Happy Land follows Nikki as she delves deeper into family secrets. The author says she was inspired by the true story of an autonomous Black community that once lived in the mountains of Appalachia. In today's episode, Perkins-Valdez joins NPR's Michel Martin for a conversation about how the author first heard of this little-known chapter in North Carolina history.

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    8 m
  • 'Paper Doll' documents trans TikTok creator Dylan Mulvaney's journey through girlhood

    'Paper Doll' documents trans TikTok creator Dylan Mulvaney's journey through girlhood
    Apr 23 2025
    Three years ago, trans content creator and actor Dylan Mulvaney posted a video on TikTok documenting her first day of girlhood. Though she didn't expect to turn the post into a series, Mulvaney says the videos became a way to track both her journey and her experience of trans joy. Now, she's out with a memoir called Paper Doll: Notes from a Late Bloomer, which continues to document her transition, as well as her rise to social media stardom. In today's episode, Mulvaney speaks with NPR's Juana Summers about religion, earnestness, and the fallout of a controversial partnership with Bud Light.

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    9 m
  • An early biography paints Pope Francis as 'The Great Reformer' of the Catholic Church

    An early biography paints Pope Francis as 'The Great Reformer' of the Catholic Church
    Apr 22 2025
    Pope Francis died Monday, leaving behind a legacy as "Pope of the People" and a change agent within the Catholic Church. Austen Ivereigh's The Great Reformer was published just a year into Pope Francis's papacy. But already, the biography argues, the pope had solidified his position as a radical reformer, both in his approach to hot-button issues and his interactions with regular people. In today's episode, we revisit a conversation between Ivereigh and NPR's Eric Westervelt. They discuss Pope Francis's upbringing in Argentina, his approach as an evangelizer, and the way his positions were at times misjudged by certain Catholics and the media.

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    7 m
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