Underground Railroad

After writing three non-fiction books dealing with race and identity, and relaunching Marvel's black superhero series Black Panther, Ta-Nehisi Coates has written his first novel. Set during slave times, it re-imagines leaders of the underground railroad as having a magical power to help people out of slavery.

In his new novel, The Underground Railroad, Whitehead returns to his childhood vision of the Underground Railroad as an actual locomotive that carries escaped slaves through tunnels.

While writing his new book, historian Eric Foner relied on a recently discovered record of slaves' escapes. He says the documents paint a "revealing picture" of life on the Underground Railroad.

Book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews Harriet Tubman: The Road to Freedom by Catherine Clinton.