Books

"The Great Gatsby" was published on April 10, 1925, which makes this Thursday its 100th anniversary. Our book critic, Maureen Corrigan, is one of the many people who think it's the great American novel. She has an appreciation.

One of the most influential writers to emerge during the civil rights era, Baldwin, who died in 1987, spoke to Terry Gross in 1986 about growing up in Harlem and his decision to move to France.

A poet, novelist and screenwriter, Hayes' name largely fell from view following his death in 1985. Now, with the re-issue of three of his novels, his reputation has been making a comeback.

The National Book Critics Circle has announced that two feminist literary scholars, Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar, will receive a lifetime achievement award. Critic Maureen Corrigan says their groundbreaking 1979 book, The Madwoman in the Attic, changed the way we read.

Critic John Powers compares the heroines featured in this summer's two cultural juggernauts -- Twilight and the Millennium Trilogy. And despite being almost diametrically opposed, the characters Lisbeth Salander and Bella Swan have more in common than you may think.

What can old issues of Publishers Weekly tell us about reading habits in dire economic times? Maureen Corrigan cracks open some of the magazine's 1933 issues and learns that readers today aren't so different from our Depression-era brethren.

Fresh Air's book critic looks back at a busy year and selects the books that linger in memory as the calendar page turns.

Her favorite fiction:

The three-day March on the Pentagon in October 1967 inspired Norman Mailer to write Armies of the Night and stirred many to action. While the march 40 years ago cannot be considered a turning point in the anti-war movement in the 1960s, it did serve to galvanize opposition to the Vietnam War.

While Harry Potter has grown to become a huge a marketing event, the book series is still, at its heart, a literary event. Critic-at-large John Powers considers kids today lucky to have that experience. He compares it to his experiences purchasing and reading the Hardy Boys mysteries as a child.

Book critic Maureen Corrigan comments on the phenomenon of citywide reading groups, where an entire city reads the same book.