Books & Literature

When she was 24, Piper Kerman dated a woman who was part of a drug smuggling ring. Years later, after being named as part of that ring, Kerman served time in a federal prison and at one point shared a cell with her former girlfriend. Her memoir of that experience inspired the Netflix series.

Enter Me

The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P. is a debut novel about a sharp and assured young man living among young, aspiring literary types in Brooklyn. Book critic Maureen Corrigan says never before has a novel made her feel so grateful to be middle-aged.

William Masters and Virginia Johnson became famous in the 1960s for their research into the physiology of human sexuality. In Masters of Sex, biographer Thomas Maier explores the duo's research methods, which for years remained shrouded in secrecy.

Maggie Shipstead mocks the pretensions of New England WASPs, while Jessica Lott executes unexpected riffs on the student-professor relationship plot. Critic Maureen Corrigan reviews two stellar fiction newcomers.

For years, there were rumors that filmmaker Henry Jaglom had taped hours of his conversations with Orson Welles but that the tapes had been lost. They weren't. Now the transcripts have been released in a new book, edited and introduced by Peter Biskind.

In a new novel, David Gilbert tells the story of a famous, aging writer whose children do not feel as warmly toward him as his readers do. Gilbert wrote the book as his own father was getting older and his son was approaching his teen years.

After "Robert Galbraith" was revealed to be the pen name for J.K. Rowling, many readers have been circling back to a "debut" novel they'd initially overlooked. Critic Maureen Corrigan says the mystery is respectable, but she will shelve it in the "I've read worse, but I've read better" category.

Reza Aslan converted to Christianity when he was a teenager, but became more interested in Jesus than as a Messiah. His book, Zealot, considers Jesus in the context of the time and place he lived in.

Novelist Kate Christensen makes a plot line of her own life in a memoir that describes her struggles to come to terms with her family, her relationships and her sometimes violent father. A passionate lover of food, Christensen weaves recipes into a story of survival.

Journalist Alfredo Corchado covers Mexico for the Dallas Morning News. His new book, Midnight In Mexico, is part memoir and part recent history of the upheaval in the country. He talks to Fresh Air about the power of the cartels, the rampant corruption and the hopes for the future of Mexico.

This is the second mystery in Sara Gran's series featuring 40-ish bad-girl detective Claire DeWitt. Critic Maureen Corrigan says that reading a noir novel written by a Brooklyn-born author gave her a rush of private-eye, patriotic pride.

The famed author and illustrator broke the rules of American children's literature in the '50s and '60s, but many Americans have never heard of him. A new documentary, Far Out Isn't Far Enough, looks at his life and work.

Colum McCann won the National Book Award for his 2009 novel, Let the Great Wolrd Spin, about a high-wire artist. Critic Maureen Corrigan says McCann's new novel, TransAtlantic, also has its head in the clouds.

Sandwiched into Joss Whedon's busy schedule of TV series and big-screen features was an unexpected low-budget adaptation of Shakespeare's comedy Much Ado About Nothing -- shot in black and white. Film critic David Edelstein says it's a delight.

Author and journalist Yoram Kaniuk died June 8 at age 83. He joined Fresh Air's Terry Gross in August 1988 to talk about fighting in the Israeli underground and his belief that, for Israelis and Palestinians, "the only way is to live somehow together."

Novelist and Miami Herald columnist Carl Hiaasen writes with passion and purpose about the state he loves. His latest book, Bad Monkey, is an offbeat murder mystery set in Key West.

Karen Joy Fowler's haunting novel, We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, draws on arguments she used to have with her father, a psychology professor, over how closely connected humans and animals are. Fowler is also the author of the 2004 best-seller The Jane Austen Book Club.

In her new memoir, Fairyland, Alysia Abbott describes her childhood as the daughter of an openly gay father in San Francisco while the gay liberation movement was gaining strength. Her book is based largely on her father's journals, which she found after his death in 1992.

"The more carny it got, the better I liked it," King says of his new thriller, Joyland. The book, set in a North Carolina amusement park in 1973, is part horror novel and part supernatural thriller. King talks with Fresh Air's Terry Gross about his career writing horror, and about what scares him now.