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'The Rachel Incident' looks back on early-20s friendships, love and mistakes
The novel The Rachel Incident is rooted around a wonderful, messy friendship. Rachel and James live together, party, and get themselves into a peculi…
1 year ago
Emily Henry's 'Funny Story' centers a new character in rom-com tropes
Two childhood best friends realize they're in love and break up with their significant others to be together – that's a classic romantic-comedy story…
1 year ago
New books by Damon Young and Dennard Dayle take different routes to humor
Today on the show, two new books take different routes to humor. First, writer Damon Young is out with an anthology of comedic essays called That's H…
1 year ago
'The Pretender' centers on a real peasant who learns he is heir to England's throne
In 1483, a 10-year-old peasant named John Collan is visited by a stranger who shares a life-changing piece of information. John isn't the son of a fa…
1 year ago
In 'The Science of Revenge,' an expert explains why humans are hardwired for payback
In his new book, The Science of Revenge, James Kimmel Jr. argues that there is a human desire to get even – and it might even be an addiction. Kimmel…
1 year ago
'Great Black Hope' is a character study of a young, Black, queer man in high society
Smith – the protagonist in Great Black Hope – is at a party in the Hamptons when he's arrested for cocaine possession. Smith is a young, Black, queer…
1 year ago
'Fatherhood' traces a history of masculinity, from Aristotle to Sigmund Freud
Historian Augustine Sedgewick became a father in the summer of 2017. At the time, media events like the Bill Cosby trial were publicly challenging id…
1 year ago
New books by Carl Hiaasen and John Seabrook tell distinctly American stories
Carl Hiaasen and John Seabrook are out with new books that draw from their personal experiences in order to tell distinctly American stories. First, …
1 year ago
Evan Osnos' 'The Haves and Have-Yachts' is a book of essays about the new Gilded Age
Following Donald Trump's election in 2016, New Yorker reporter Evan Osnos wanted to understand what the president's wealth and status represented in …
1 year ago
Leisha Hailey and Kate Moennig reflect on 'The L Word' in memoir 'So Gay For You'
By the early 2000s, only a handful of queer female characters had ever been featured on television. Then, The L Word entered the scene in 2004, explo…
1 year ago