Terry Gross

In his new book, How the Word Is Passed, Clint Smith visits eight places central to the history of slavery in America, including Thomas Jefferson's Monticello plantation and Louisiana's Angola prison, which was built on the site of a former plantation.

Russell cut her new album in a scant four days, pouring a lifetime of experiences into it. Outside Child is the confession of a woman who's faced hellish experiences and emerged with uncommon grace.

In her new book, The Second: Race and Guns in a Fatally Unequal America, Carol Anderson traces racial distinctions in Americans' treatment of gun ownership back to the founding of the country and the Second Amendment