Books & Literature

Shane McCrae, poet and author of the new memoir "Pulling The Chariot Of The Sun: A Memoir Of A Kidnapping."

Writer Andrew Leland started losing his sight 20 years ago, when he was in high school, as a result of a progressive eye disease called retinitis pigmentosa, an inherited condition that leads to the deterioration of the retinas.

Dubus III talks about the injuries he faced when he was a carpenter, and how his relationship changed with his father after the senior Dubus was struck by a car and never walked again.

S.A. Cosby's new novel is called "All The Sinners Bleed." He spoke with our producer, Sam Briger.

"My early '70s New York is dingy and grimy," the Pulitzer Prize-winning author says. Whitehead's sequel to Harlem Shuffle centers on crime at every level, from small-time crooks to Harlem's elite.

Maureen Corrigan's review of two new novels that are great summer reading: Do Tell by Lindsay Lynch and The Stolen Coast by Dwyer Murphy

Ken Tucker reviews Robert McCormick's Biography of a Phantom: A Robert Johnson Blues Odyssey, and Robert Mugge's Notes from the Road: A Filmmaker's Journey Through American Music.

"My father was not a good person, but he was a great character," Sedaris says. The humorist reflected on his late father in the memoir Happy-Go-Lucky. Originally broadcast May 31, 2022.

Maureen Corrigan is a professor of literature at Georgetown University. She reviewed Anne Hull's new memoir, "Through The Groves."

Maureen Corrigan reviews Richard Ford's new book, "Be Mine," and Lorrie Moore's "I Am Homeless If This Is Not My Home."

Gottlieb, who died June 14 at 92, edited Joseph Heller, Toni Morrison, John le Carré and, for more than 50 years, Robert Caro. We listen back to an interview with Gottlieb from just a few months ago.

Two new novels about the struggle to find and keep a secure place in America have caught our book critic Maureen Corrigan's attention.

German author Jenny Erpenbeck is one of the most acclaimed writers of the last 25 years. Her new novel "Kairos," just out from New Directions, tells the story of a 19-year-old female student in East Berlin who falls in love with a much older male writer in the run-up to the fall of the Berlin Wall.

The late rapper — who was killed at 25 in 1996 — would have turned 52 this year. Santi Elijah Holley's new book follows the Shakur family tree and their work in the Black Liberation Movement.

Swarns' new book — The 272: The Families Who Were Enslaved and Sold to Build the American Catholic Church — expands on that article. It tells the story of the Church's history of enslavement in America, while illustrating the consequences by focusing on generations of one family that had several members among those 272 people sold by the Church in 1838.

Cooper was birdwatching in Central Park in 2020 when a white woman falsely accused him of threatening her. His book chronicles life as a Black birder, gay activist and Marvel comics writer and editor.

Maureen reviewed "Beware The Woman" by Megan Abbott and "My Murder" by Katie Williams.

John Vercher trained in mixed martial arts as a young man. His novel, After the Lights Go Out, centers on a veteran MMA fighter who struggles to remember things. Originally broadcast June 28, 2022.

"I'm not a grown man — I'm a growing man," Alexander says. His new memoir started as a book of love poems, but ended up being a collection of essays and poems about love, divorce and raising children.

The British novelist, who died May 19, was a member of one of England's most famous writing families. His novels included Money, London Fields and The Information. Originally broadcast in 1990.