Author Interviews

Playlist

browse by date
subscribe
share

The Bonds Of Friendship Stay Strong In 'Stranger'

August 4, 2015 • Newbery Medal-winning author Rebecca Stead says her latest, Goodbye Stranger, is about love and how it helps a trio of seventh-grade girls stay friends through the challenges of middle school.

Listen Loading… 7:50

Playlist
Download
Embed
Embed <iframe src="http://www.npr.org/player/embed/429365941/429386034" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no">

Environment

Exploring The 'Wild And Haunting World Of Dolphins'

August 4, 2015 • In her new book, Voices in the Ocean, Susan Casey describes the life of dolphins and details some new threats the animals face, such as organized dolphin kills and man-made sounds in the ocean.

Listen Loading… 32:36

Playlist
Download
Embed
Embed <iframe src="http://www.npr.org/player/embed/428986235/429366710" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no">

Reflecting On Football And Addiction As 'Friday Night Lights' Turns 25

August 3, 2015 • A quarter-century ago, Buzz Bissinger wrote about the big-time stakes of small-town high school football in Friday Night Lights. Now he talks about the impact the book had on the players and himself.

Listen Loading… 44:32

Playlist
Download
Embed
Embed <iframe src="http://www.npr.org/player/embed/428085798/429044488" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no">

'Kids Love To Be Scared': Louis Sachar On Balancing Fun And Fear

August 2, 2015 • The award-winning author of Holes has just published a new novel for young readers, called Fuzzy Mud. It mixes middle-school social puzzles with a more sinister mystery: a rogue biotech threat.

Listen Loading… 5:32

Playlist
Download
Embed
Embed <iframe src="http://www.npr.org/player/embed/427113842/428766598" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no">

Luther Campbell Of 2 Live Crew On Fame, Obscenity And Community

August 2, 2015 • Before joining the notoriously shocking rap crew, Campbell was a party-rocking DJ in Miami. Even then, he knew that being aggressively different could lead to success.

Listen Loading… 9:59

Playlist
Download
Embed
Embed <iframe src="http://www.npr.org/player/embed/427850689/428643436" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no">

Aviator Beryl Markham Soars Again In 'Paris Wife' Author's New Book

August 1, 2015 • "It is my fate to illuminate the lives of these one-of-a-kind notable women that have been somehow forgotten by history," says Paula McLain. She shines her spotlight on Markham in Circling the Sun.

Listen Loading… 6:14

Playlist
Download
Embed
Embed <iframe src="http://www.npr.org/player/embed/427113402/428448037" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no">

Books

A Look Back On 'Middle Passage': The Evolution Of A Literary Classic

August 1, 2015 • Twenty-five years after Charles Johnson's Middle Passage — which dwells with race, class and gender in 19th-century America — won the National Book Award, he reflects on his book's evolving meaning.

Listen Loading… 5:12

Playlist
Download
Embed
Embed <iframe src="http://www.npr.org/player/embed/428448005/428448006" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no">

A Study Of Gods And Human Nature In 'Tiberius'

August 1, 2015 • Under Tiberius is a new novel about deceit and crime. The main character is the man who came to be known as Jesus Christ. NPR's Scott Simon talks to author Nick Tosches.

Listen Loading… 5:45

Playlist
Download
Embed
Embed <iframe src="http://www.npr.org/player/embed/428355272/428355273" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no">

An infantryman eats food rations from cans during the Vietnam War. Corbis hide caption

itoggle caption Corbis

The Salt

Cheetos, Canned Foods, Deli Meat: How The U.S. Army Shapes Our Diet

July 31, 2015 • Many of the processed foods that we eat — and the way they're made — were invented not for us, but for soldiers, says the author of the new book Combat-Ready Kitchen.

Emily Bogle/NPR

Shots - Health News

A Path From 'Blackout' Drunkenness To Sobriety And Self-Acceptance

July 30, 2015 • Writer Sarah Hepola once got so drunk before giving a presentation to 300 people that she didn't remember it the next day. In Blackout, her memoir, Hepola wrestles with her reasons for drinking.

Listen Loading… 37:45

Playlist
Download
Embed
Embed <iframe src="http://www.npr.org/player/embed/427435929/427853008" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no">

The fictitious town of Agloe was created by Otto G. Lindberg and his assistant, Ernest Alpers.

Booklist /American Library Association

Arts & Life

With 'Paper Towns,' Author John Green Reopens Search For Agloe, N.Y.

July 29, 2015 • Agloe, N.Y., is not a town in any real sense. Instead, it's among a number of fakes that mapmakers planted to foil plagiarists. It inspired John Green to write his book (and now movie) Paper Towns.

Listen Loading… 2:09

Playlist
Download
Embed
Embed <iframe src="http://www.npr.org/player/embed/427464639/427464640" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no">

Lee Woodgate/Ikon Images/Corbis

Shots - Health News

A Sense Of Self: What Happens When Your Brain Says You Don't Exist

July 28, 2015 • In his new book, The Man Who Wasn't There, Anil Ananthaswamy examines the ways people think of themselves — and how those perceptions can be distorted by certain brain conditions.

Listen Loading… 35:24

Playlist
Download
Embed
Embed <iframe src="http://www.npr.org/player/embed/426753409/427155720" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no">

A Rage For The Ages: The Unforgettable 'Pine Tar Game'

July 26, 2015 • In the 1983 game, the Yankees were holding a trump card: an obscure rule that turned the Royals' game-winning home run into a game-loser, inspiring one of the most epic tantrums in baseball history.

Listen Loading… 5:16

Playlist
Download
Embed
Embed <iframe src="http://www.npr.org/player/embed/424978808/426509260" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no">

'Jane Eyre' Retelling Swaps English Countryside For Bustling City Streets

July 26, 2015 • Patricia Park's novel, Re Jane, is a retelling of Charlotte Bronte's classic Jane Eyre set in modern-day New York and South Korea. NPR's Rachel Martin speaks with author Jean Kwok about Park's novel.

Listen Loading… 4:31

Playlist
Download
Embed
Embed <iframe src="http://www.npr.org/player/embed/426434708/426434709" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no">

Courtesy of Little, Brown and Company

In This Twist On Tricky Dick's History, A President's Secrets Can Save Us

July 26, 2015 • In Crooked, novelist Austin Grossman excuses Richard Nixon's rocky political career in the weirdest ways possible — by reimagining the former president as a warrior against supernatural forces.

Listen Loading… 5:44

Playlist
Download
Embed
Embed <iframe src="http://www.npr.org/player/embed/425985721/426434651" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no">

Diana Davies/Courtesy of the Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections, Smithsonian Institution

Newport Folk Festival

50 Years Ago, Bob Dylan Electrified A Decade With One Concert

July 25, 2015 • It's been 50 years since Bob Dylan strolled on stage at the Newport Folk Festival, plugged in an electric guitar, and infuriated his flock. Historian Elijah Wald says there's much more to the story.

Listen Loading… 9:02

Playlist
Download
Embed
Embed <iframe src="http://www.npr.org/player/embed/424977355/426255469" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no">

An Unlikely Pair Form A Wily Duo In 'Crooked Heart'

July 25, 2015 • An orphan boy becomes friends with the scheming woman who takes him in in Lissa Evans' new novel, Crooked Heart. NPR's Scott Simon speaks with her about her WWII-era novel.

Listen Loading… 7:11

Playlist
Download
Embed
Embed <iframe src="http://www.npr.org/player/embed/426145911/426145912" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no">

In 'Wondering Who You Are,' A Man Wakes Up And Doesn't Know His Wife

July 25, 2015 • Sonya Lea and her husband Richard Bandy had been married for more than 20 years when he had to have an operation for a rare cancer. Since then, he's been piecing together the puzzle of his past.

Listen Loading… 6:32

Playlist
Download
Embed
Embed <iframe src="http://www.npr.org/player/embed/425655861/426145958" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no">

'Fresh Air' Remembers 'Billy Bathgate' Author E. L. Doctorow

July 24, 2015 • Doctorow, who died Tuesday at the age of 84, was the author of dozens of novels, many of which combined fictional characters and real people in a historical context. Originally broadcast in 1989.

Listen Loading… 19:54

Playlist
Download
Embed
Embed <iframe src="http://www.npr.org/player/embed/425892294/425917212" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no">

Author Curtis Sittenfeld Josephine Sittenfeld/Josephine Sittenfeld hide caption

itoggle caption Josephine Sittenfeld/Josephine Sittenfeld

Ask Me Another

Curtis Sittenfeld: Fifty Shades Of Jane

July 23, 2015 • Author Curtis Sittenfeld talks about her new book Entitled, and gets quizzed on the many differences (AND similarities!) between Pride and Prejudice and E. L. James' Fifty Shades of Grey.

Listen Loading… 11:07

Playlist
Download
Embed
Embed <iframe src="http://www.npr.org/player/embed/425313674/425366230" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no">

William Finnegan surfs Cloudbreak, off the island of Tavarua in Fiji, in 2005. Scott Winer hide caption

itoggle caption Scott Winer

A Lifelong Surfer Explains Why There's No Such Thing As A 'Perfect' Wave

July 21, 2015 • "Waves are not stationary objects in nature. They're not diamonds or roses or something that you just look at," says New Yorker journalist William Finnegan. His new memoir is called Barbarian Days.

Listen Loading… 7:18

Playlist
Download
Embed
Embed <iframe src="http://www.npr.org/player/embed/424640535/424887381" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no">

Written In Spanish About Belgium By A Colombian, 'It Feels American'

July 19, 2015 • Nearly 15 years after his story collection was published in Spanish, Juan Gabriel Vásquez's Lovers on All Saints' Day has gotten an English translation. He explains the book's patchwork provenance.

Listen Loading… 5:39

Playlist
Download
Embed
Embed <iframe src="http://www.npr.org/player/embed/423783607/424453951" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no">

Environment

Birds, Bees And The Power Of Sex Appeal: The Ribald Lives Of Flowers

July 18, 2015 • They're billboards for sexual favors, says ecologist Stephen Buchmann. But get your minds out of the dirt: We're talking pollination — and it's played a surprising role in global trade and history.

Listen Loading… 4:21

Playlist
Download
Embed
Embed <iframe src="http://www.npr.org/player/embed/423478625/424194134" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no">