Episodes

  • 'The Alternatives' is a novel about grief, sisterhood and working women

    'The Alternatives' is a novel about grief, sisterhood and working women
    May 20 2024
    Caoilinn Hughes' novel The Alternatives revolves around the four Flattery sisters, each with a more impressive career or degree than the last, all with a profound grief for the parents they lost at a young age. When one of the sisters purposely goes off the grid, the other three are reunited in the Irish countryside in an attempt to find her. In today's episode, NPR's Andrew Limbong asks Hughes about crafting the witty dialogue between the sisters, writing side characters that jump off the page and getting feedback from her own siblings.

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    7 mins
  • Brittney Griner's memoir recounts her detention in Russia and finally 'Coming Home'

    Brittney Griner's memoir recounts her detention in Russia and finally 'Coming Home'
    May 17 2024
    In 2022, WNBA star Brittney Griner was detained by Russian authorities, convicted of drug charges and given a nine-year prison sentence. Her new memoir, Coming Home, details the conditions she was held in and her eventual return to the U.S. following a swap deal. In today's episode, NPR's Juana Summers asks Griner about the mental and physical toll she's still grappling with, reuniting with her wife and trying to forgive herself for what happened.

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    13 mins
  • 'Lessons for Survival' thinks about parenting through social and environmental crises

    'Lessons for Survival' thinks about parenting through social and environmental crises
    May 16 2024
    As a parent, how do you navigate – and feel hope – raising kids through a pandemic, a climate crisis and with police brutality in the news? That's the question at the center of Emily Raboteau's new book, Lessons for Survival: Mothering Against 'The Apocalypse.' In today's episode, Raboteau tells Here & Now's Celeste Headlee what she learned about radical care, resilience and interdependence through the people she met in her community and in her travels, and how she thinks about parenting through personal and global hardships.


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    11 mins
  • Colm Tóibín's long-anticipated sequel to 'Brooklyn' is 'Long Island'

    Colm Tóibín's long-anticipated sequel to 'Brooklyn' is 'Long Island'
    May 15 2024
    The writer Colm Tóibín says he never meant to write a sequel to his 2009 novel Brooklyn. But an image came to him years later, of his protagonist from that book suddenly finding out her husband has had an affair that resulted in a pregnancy — and so he followed the story in Long Island. In today's episode, NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with Tóibín about revisiting Eilis Lacey in her 40s and upending her domestic life.

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    9 mins
  • Chanel Miller's new children's book follows lost socks in New York City

    Chanel Miller's new children's book follows lost socks in New York City
    May 14 2024
    Chanel Miller's first book was a critically acclaimed memoir about her sexual assault and the following trial. But she always wanted to write and illustrate books for kids. In today's episode, Miller tells NPR's Andrew Limbong how moving to New York City and ingraining herself into her community inspired Magnolia Wu Unfolds It All, a new book about a young girl and her BFF traversing their neighborhood to return socks that were left behind at the laundromat to their owners.

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    15 mins
  • Rachel Khong's new novel explores who gets to be 'Real Americans'

    Rachel Khong's new novel explores who gets to be 'Real Americans'
    May 13 2024
    Real Americans, the new novel by Rachel Khong, spans generations and decades within a family to understand the ongoing struggle to make sense of race, class and identity in the United States. Like with any family story, there are secrets and confrontations and difficult conversations, too; that desire to fill in the gaps about where we come from and how it has shaped our lineage is at the center of today's interview with Khong and NPR's Juana Summers.

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    9 mins
  • For Mother's Day, two books that tackle motherhood

    For Mother's Day, two books that tackle motherhood
    May 10 2024
    This weekend is Mother's Day, a good occasion to reflect on the art of parenting. First, comedian Glenn Boozan speaks to Celeste Headlee on Here and Now about her book There Are Moms Way Worse Than You, a joke-book that uses examples of bad parenting from the animal kingdom to soothe those who might be worried about their own child-raising skills.Then, an interview from our archives: a 1989 chat with Amy Tan on All Things Considered about her novel The Joy Luck Club, the story of four Chinese American families living in San Francisco inspired by Tan's experience as a child of immigrants.

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    19 mins
  • In 'Soil,' Camille Dungy weaves together gardening, race and motherhood

    In 'Soil,' Camille Dungy weaves together gardening, race and motherhood
    May 9 2024
    For poet Camille Dungy, environmental justice, community interdependence and political engagement go hand in hand. She explores those relationships in her book, Soil: The Story of a Black Mother's Garden. In it, she details how her experience trying to diversify the species growing in her yard, in a predominantly white town in Colorado, reflects larger themes of how we talk about land and race in the U.S. In today's episode, she tells NPR's Melissa Block about the journey that gardening put her on, and what it's revealed about who gets to write about the environment.

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    9 mins