Books

Nick Harkaway grew up hearing his dad read drafts of his George Smiley novels. He picked up le Carré's beloved spymaster character in the novel Karla's Choice. Originally broadcast Oct. 23, 2024.

author Zadie Smith. Her new collection of essays is called "Dead And Alive."

In his new memoir, The Uncool, Crowe reflects on his adventures and misadventures as a teenage music journalist. He also writes about what life was like in his family, and how he convinced his parents to allow him to go on the road before he'd even graduated high school.

Gilbert's 2006 memoir, Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia, chronicled her year of post-divorce travel and self discovery, and was turned into a movie starring Julia Roberts. Her latest book, All the Way to the River: Love, Loss, and Liberation, tells the story of Gilbert's relationship with Rayya Elias.

In 2023, Mallon spoke about his novel, Up With the Sun, which is based on the life of a little-known actor who was gay and closeted. His new book is The Very Heart of it: New York Diaries, 1983-1994.

Danzy Senna was born a few years after Loving v. Virginia legalized interracial marriage. "Existing as a family was a radical statement at that time," she says. Originally broadcast Sept. 3, 2024.

Leila Mottley's latest novel, The Girls Who Grew Big, follows three women, ages 16, 18 and 20, as they navigate pregnancy and motherhood in a small town in the Florida panhandle. With the state's abortion laws in flux, Mottley says she had to keep adjusting her characters' experiences to fit the new reality.

Carter Sherman is a reproductive health and justice reporter at The Guardian, where she's covered the real-world results of abortion bans, access to health care for trans people and how technology is reshaping our view of our bodies and our choices. In her new book, "The Second Coming: Sex And The Next Generation's Fight Over Its Future," Sherman explores why Gen Z - that's people ages 13 to 28 - are having less sex than previous generations.

author and poet Ocean Vuong on his new novel, "The Emperor Of Gladness." Set in a fading Connecticut town, the book follows a suicidal young man whose life takes an unexpected turn when he becomes the caretaker of an elderly woman with dementia. Loosely inspired by Vuong's own experiences growing up in a working-class immigrant family in Glastonbury, Connecticut, the novel explores themes of chosen family, survival and the quiet resilience of everyday life.

Todd Purdum. He's the author of the new book, "Desi Arnez: The Man Who Invented Television."