Books & Literature

After defying her country's ban on woman drivers, Manal al Sharif was arrested. The outcry by people all over the world led to her release. She tells her story from growing up in Mecca, and adhering to the fundamentalist interpretation of Islam to being a security engineer at Aramco, the Saudi national oil company.

Book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews two new short story collections: The Winter Without Milk by Jane Avrich, and The Laws of Evening by Mary Yukari Waters.

Illustrator Marjane Satrapi is the author of the memoir, Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood. The book is in the form of an illustrated comic. Satrapi was born in 1969 in Iran, and grew up in Tehran during the Islamic Revolution. One reviewer writes, "A triumph... Like Maus, Persepolis is one of those comic books capable of seducing even those most allergic to the genre."

David Sedaris' new book comes directly from his diaries from 1977-2002 and includes entries about everything from picking fruit and cleaning houses for a living, to going to art school, the life changing broadcast of his Santaland Diaries on Morning Edition, getting sober, and the deaths of his mother and sister.

Critic-at-large John Powers reviews the autobiographical novel which has become a big bestseller and has been translated into 20 languages. John says the novel is as relevant in America as it is in its home country.

Journeys, near and far, into the past and even into near space, are the subject of the novels, memoirs and narrative histories that make up book critic Maureen Corrigan's early summer reading list.

Pamela Paul of The New York Times talks about her own new book, which chronicles every book she's read since she was 17 years old. Even if a work isn't great, she refuses to brush it aside cavalierly.

Susan Burton has dedicated her life to stopping the cycle of recidivism, not just in her life, but in the lives of other women like her. She founded the organization A New Way of Life which helps women released from prison.

Noah Hawley says his FX series, now in its third season, explores the central premise of the Coen Brothers' iconic 1996 film. Hawley is also the creator of the FX series Legion.

Paul Steinbeck's new book chronicles the antics, both on and off stage, of the storied jazz ensemble. Critic Kevin Whitehead says Message to Our Folks celebrates the band's success on their own terms.

In 2010, writer Rakesh Satyal won the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Debut Fiction, for his novel "Blue Boy." His new novel is called "No One Can Pronounce My Name" which book critic Maureen Corrigan says is a misleading title.

Before she turned to writing, the National Book Award nominee ran away from home and worked as a stripper. Her new collection of personal essays is Somebody with a Little Hammer.

Actress Gabourey Sidibe made her acting debut playing a sexually and physically abused teenager in the film Precious. Since then she's co-starred in the TV series Empire, American Horror Story and The Big C. She has a new memoir.

Maureen Corrigan reviews 'Anything Is Possible,' the new book by Elizabeth Strout. Strout also wrote 'Olive Kitteridge' which won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist revisits the lives and deaths of his parents in his new memoir, Between Them. "As much as they loved me, an only child, they loved each other more," he says.

Comic W. Kamau Bell has spent much of his life feeling awkward. A self-described "tall, rangy black dude," Bell was often mistaken for a basketball player growing up — except that serious asthma and allergies meant he spent the bulk of his childhood indoors watching TV.

In her new memoir, "Sometimes Amazing Things Happen," psychiatrist Elizabeth Ford writes about the horror and the hope she found in treating Rikers inmates.

Book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews the new memoir by Dani Shapiro; it's her third memoir and it's about marriage. Her first two were best sellers.

British filmmaker Terence Davies turns his attention to the gifted New England poet in his new movie. Critic Justin Chang calls the film a "sharp, sensitive portrait" of a woman ahead of her time.

Former Obama staffer Alyssa Mastromonaco is well acquainted with the privilege — and sleeplessness — of working in the White House: "I basically ran on adrenaline, almost, for six years," she says.