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Ian McEwan’s latest novel ‘What We Can Know’ is science fiction without the science
At 77, the Booker Prize-winning British novelist Ian McEwan shows no signs of slowing down. His new novel, What We Can Know, is set in Great Britain in the 22nd century – a country now partly underwa…
Published on 2 months, 3 weeks ago
‘Peacemaker’ and ‘Tomorrow Is Yesterday’ are personal histories of diplomacy
Two new books dive into the details of diplomacy. First, in the 1960s U Thant became the first non-Western secretary-general of the United Nations. Now his grandson, historian Thant Myint-U, has writ…
Published on 2 months, 3 weeks ago
Ken Jaworowski’s new crime novel ‘What About the Bodies’ has a surprising tender side
Ken Jaworowski is out with a new crime novel with a surprising tender side. What About the Bodies is set in a fictional town past its glory days with a shuttered steel plant, closed coal mines, and a…
Published on 2 months, 3 weeks ago
‘Dark Renaissance’ historian on how Christopher Marlowe paved the way for Shakespeare
The Elizabethan playwright Christopher Marlowe is known as Shakespeare’s greatest rival. But in his new book Dark Renaissance, historian Stephen Greenblatt makes the case that Marlowe paved the way f…
Published on 2 months, 3 weeks ago
‘Beyond Fast’ chronicles one coach’s unlikely revolution in high school cross-country
When Sean Brosnan started coaching the Newbury Park High School cross-country team, the school hadn't qualified for a state championship in 25 years. But within just three years, they were state cham…
Published on 2 months, 3 weeks ago
In his new novel ‘The Secret of Secrets,’ Dan Brown takes on human consciousness
Dan Brown, author of The Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons, is out with his sixth book starring fictional Harvard professor Robert Langdon. In The Secret of Secrets, Langdon is dragged out of his c…
Published on 2 months, 4 weeks ago
‘Long Way Down’ and ‘The Hate U Give’ are modern classics about gun violence
The final episode in our Back to School series focuses on two contemporary books that tell stories about gun violence. First, Jason Reynolds’ 2017 novel in verse Long Way Down centers on a moment of …
Published on 3 months ago
What Toni Morrison learned from revisiting five of her most-read novels
Arguably, no high school reading list is complete without one of Toni Morrison’s books. In today’s episode, we look back at a 2004 conversation between the author and NPR’s Renee Montagne, who visite…
Published on 3 months ago
Sandra Cisneros’ ‘The House on Mango Street’ was born from a feeling of displacement
Sandra Cisneros’ The House on Mango Street is a series of vignettes drawn from the experiences of a Mexican-American girl living in Chicago. Since its publication in 1983, it’s become required readin…
Published on 3 months ago
In her translation of ‘The Odyssey,’ Emily Wilson aimed for ‘a crystalline clarity’
In 2017, Emily Wilson became the first woman to translate Homer’s The Odyssey into English – more than three millennia after the epic’s inception. In the second installment of our Back to School seri…
Published on 3 months ago