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  • 'Spies and Other Gods' is an espionage novel by a former British intelligence officer

    'Spies and Other Gods' is an espionage novel by a former British intelligence officer
    2026/05/04
    James Wolff is the pseudonym of a former British intelligence officer who now writes espionage novels. His latest, Spies and Other Gods, follows the Head of British Intelligence at the tail end of a long and successful career who feels that his mental acuity is beginning to slip away. In the midst of this brain fog, Sir William Rentoul must join forces with intelligence teams across Europe to track down an anonymous assassin. In today’s episode, Wolff joins NPR’s Mary Louise Kelly for a conversation about the personal cost of spying and Wolff’s cast of Iranian characters.

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    9 分
  • 'The Take' and 'The Left and the Lucky' explore peculiar friendships across age

    'The Take' and 'The Left and the Lucky' explore peculiar friendships across age
    2026/05/01
    Two new novels center vital, but unusual connections across age. In The Take, an aspiring writer named Maggie agrees to an outlandish deal with Ingrid, an established Hollywood producer. Author Kelly Yang spoke with NPR’s Ailsa Chang about the medical procedure at the center of the novel, which accelerates Maggie’s aging while reversing Ingrid’s. Then, The Left and the Lucky tells the story of an 8-year-old boy and a man in his 40s who bond one night over a quesadilla. Author and musician Willy Vlautin told NPR’s Scott Simon about his commitment to stories with working-class characters.

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    18 分
  • Mikhail Zygar says the Soviet Union’s collapse was only a temporary win for democracy

    Mikhail Zygar says the Soviet Union’s collapse was only a temporary win for democracy
    2026/04/30
    Wars in Ukraine and in the Middle East are reshaping global politics. In The Dark Side of the Earth, exiled Russian journalist Mikhail Zygar traces the origins of these conflicts to the end of the Cold War. The book is a history of Russia as seen from Moscow during different moments in the Soviet Empire. In today’s episode, the author talks with NPR’s Nick Spicer about how the Soviet Union’s 1991 collapse was only a temporary win for democracy – and why this theme might resonate with American readers today.

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    9 分
  • In 'Yesteryear,' a tradwife influencer wakes up in the time period she’s fetishized

    In 'Yesteryear,' a tradwife influencer wakes up in the time period she’s fetishized
    2026/04/29
    Natalie Heller Mills is a tradwife influencer with 5 million followers. She drinks raw milk, eats farm fresh eggs, and is “perfect at being alive.” But when she wakes up in 1855, the very time period she’s fetishized, she feels afraid – and paranoid that she’s being filmed. In today’s episode, Caro Claire Burke joins NPR’s Ayesha Rascoe for a conversation about the author’s debut novel, Yesteryear. They discuss Natalie as an anti-hero, Burke’s interest in power hierarchies over religion, and how the author pushed the tradwife trend to “its final conclusion.”

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    8 分
  • 'Infinity Machine' is a biography of an Oppenheimer-like figure in AI

    'Infinity Machine' is a biography of an Oppenheimer-like figure in AI
    2026/04/28
    Demis Hassabis says when he set up an AI lab in 2010, “no one believed in it.” The Google DeepMind co-founder and Nobel Prize winner is the subject of Infinity Machine, a new biography by Sebastian Mallaby. The book is a portrait of Hassabis, who Mallaby characterizes as a rare competitor across both science and business. In today’s episode, Mallaby speaks with NPR’s Steve Inskeep about Hassabis’ origins as a young chess player, his Einstein-level ambition, and parallels between Hassabis and Robert Oppenheimer.

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    8 分
  • In Maria Semple’s 'Go Gentle,' a surprise love interest upends a Stoic life

    In Maria Semple’s 'Go Gentle,' a surprise love interest upends a Stoic life
    2026/04/27
    In Maria Semple’s new novel, Adora Hazzard works as a moral trainer to the tweens of a wealthy family on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. She’s a content, divorced stoic philosopher in her late 50s with a coven of likeminded, middle-aged female friends. But one night at the ballet, she falls into conversation with a stranger and gets seduced by a world of secrecy, black-market art, and international intrigue. In today’s episode, Semple joins NPR’s Scott Simon for a conversation about Go Gentle, stoicism, and “getting the party started” in her 50s.

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    8 分
  • Ada Limón talks forgiveness, ghosts and fertility on 'Wild Card'

    Ada Limón talks forgiveness, ghosts and fertility on 'Wild Card'
    2026/04/24
    This week, we're celebrating National Poetry Month by revisiting some of our favorite conversations with poets. In 2024, then U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón edited and introduced You Are Here: Poetry in the Natural World, a collection of poems by writers like Joy Harjo and Jericho Brown that pays homage to landscapes across the United States. In today's episode, Limón joins NPR's Rachel Martin on Wild Card. They discuss pivotal moments in Limón's life marked by natural scenery — and go beyond that into conversations about grandparents, memory and mortality.

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    30 分
  • Healing through poetry in 'Light For The World To See'

    Healing through poetry in 'Light For The World To See'
    2026/04/23
    This week, we're celebrating National Poetry Month by revisiting some of our favorite conversations with poets. In 2020, Kwame Alexander was feeling the weight of being Black in America and didn't know how to make sense of his feelings. So, he made sense of them through his book of poetry, Light For The World To See: A Thousand Words On Race And Hope. It's three poems on three historic events: the murder of George Floyd, Colin Kaepernick's protests, and Barack Obama being elected president. Alexander told NPR's Rachel Martin he wrote this as a call for Black people to remember their humanity.

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    8 分