News on Books

When author Bruce Handy's son was young, he loved and lost an orange balloon. He and illustrator Julie Kwon talk about a child's singular devotion to a lost object in their nearly wordless kids' book.

In The Secret War Against Hate, Steven J. Ross details the racist, anti-Semitic groups that sprang up in the latter half of the 20th century — and the spy network that worked to bring them to justice.

What does it mean to monetize your offspring? To turn their childhood into content? In Like, Follow, Subscribe Fortesa Latifi explores what drives parents to become family influencers.

"Men can't see the mess." "Women are better at chores." These myths position women to take on more emotional thinking, says researcher Leah Ruppanner. She shares what works to reclaim your headspace.

The ALA says 4,235 titles were challenged at U.S. libraries — the second-highest year on record. Forty percent of the challenged works involved LGBTQ+ subjects or the experiences of people of color.

As a teen, Yousafzai risked her life speaking out against the Taliban. "At the time, what scared me more was a life without an education as a girl," the Nobel-winner told Terry Gross at a live event.

Once called the "King of Bad Taste," Waters is known for his off-beat cult films Pink Flamingos and Polyester, as well as the more mainstream Hairspray. Originally broadcast in 2014 and 2019.

The annual Whiting Award for Emerging Writers comes with $50,000 to support each winner's work. It's one of the largest prizes granted to promising new authors.

Harvard professor Namwali Serpell has been teaching Morrison for nearly two decades. Her book, On Morrison is a deep dive into the Nobel winner's complete body of work — 11 novels, plays and criticism.

Critic Kevin Whitehead reviews biographies of two musicians who transcended jazz, and to whom recognition was slow in coming: James P. Johnson, born in 1894, and Alice Coltrane, born in 1937.