News on Books

Journalist and author Isabel Wilkerson reflects on this year's Juneteenth celebrations — and the push and pull of the Black experience in America.

Maureen Corrigan recommends four great reads: El Dorado Drive, by Megan Abbott; The House on Buzzards Bay, by Dwyer Murphy; King of Ashes, by S.A. Cosby; and Murder Takes a Vacation, by Laura Lippman.

Author Dan Rubinstein paddled from Ottawa to New York City and back to understand how being near water benefits people. His book is called "Water Borne."

It's summer! Which means Brittany is going to be... 1) outside, 2) chilling, and 3) reading. So it's once again time for It's Been a Minute's annual summer books episode!

Celebrated romance authors Bolu Babalola and Emily Henry return to the show to discuss their summer reading recommendations, ranging from spiteful and salacious to sweet and spicy.

Books discussed in the episode:
Sweet Heat by Bolu Babalola
Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
Lush by Rochelle Dowden-Lord
Casanova LLC by Julia Whalen
The Wickedest by Caleb Femi
The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah
Matriarch by Tina Knowles

In his new memoir, Comedy Samurai, Charles reflects on his career in comedy — from writing for Seinfeld to directing Sacha Baron Cohen's films Borat and Brüno — and a recent near-death experience.

The new books publishing this week may get quite heavy, laden as they are with family tragedy, psychopathy and heartbreak — but at least they are fiction.

Former FDA chief Dr. David Kessler says the new weight-loss drugs are a powerful tool to fight obesity. But they come with pitfalls. Here's his tips for how to use them successfully.

Reporter Kevin Sack's new book is a history of Charleston's Emanuel AME Church, the oldest Black congregation in the South, where a white supremacist killed nine worshippers a decade ago.

NPR's Steve Inskeep speaks with author Augustine Sedgewick about his new book, "Fatherhood," which illustrates as a collective portrait of emblematic fathers throughout history from Aristotle to Bob Dylan.

Mary Randolph Carter is an expert on all things junk. She's written many books on the topic including her latest called Live With the Things You Love: And You'll Live Happily Ever After. We asked Carter if there was ever one piece of junk she acquired over the years that stuck with her so much and lived inside her head rent free for so long that she wishes she made it. The object that came to mind was a very peculiar clock.