NPR's Book of the Day Folgen

In Ilona Bannister’s Five, five strangers wait on a train platform. One will die in the next five minutes but only one person knows: the reader. In Anthony Horowitz’s A Deadly Episode, his real 2018 novel The Word is Murder becomes a fictional film adaptation with one problem: the actor playing the protagonist is dead. Today’s episode features conversations on metafiction with both authors. First, Bannister talks to NPR’s Ayesha Rascoe about writing a novel with a five-minute timespan. Then, Horowitz talks to NPR’s Scott Simon about poking fun at true crime — with a novel about true crime.To listen to Book of the Day sponsor-free and support NPR's book coverage, sign up for Book of the Day+ at plus.npr.org/bookofthedaySee pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw is a foundational legal scholar, theorist, and Civil Rights advocate, known for coining such significant and controversial terms as intersectionality and Critical Race Theory. But what — or who — inspired her work? Crenshaw examines just this in her new memoir Backtalker, which delves into her past, and the legal cases that shined light on complex and underresearched structures of inequity. In today’s episode, Crenshaw joins NPR’s Michel Martin for a conversation about Backtalker and why, as she says, “forward momentum has always been met by retrenchment.”To listen to Book of the Day sponsor-free and support NPR's book coverage, sign up for Book of the Day+ at plus.npr.org/bookofthedaySee pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

Becks is a queer teenager in the 1980s struggling to find a sense of belonging. When she picks up an unfinished coding project left behind by her beloved late uncle, she isn’t quite prepared for her efforts to ripple centuries into the future. Told in the years 1983, 2090, and 2586, Portia Elan’s novel Homebound weaves Becks’ story with that of future humans who experience similar struggles in a vastly different landscape. In today’s episode, Elan speaks with NPR’s Scott Detrow about her debut novel, and the timelessness of searching for a place — or a feeling — to call home. To listen to Book of the Day sponsor-free and support NPR's book coverage, sign up for Book of the Day+ at plus.npr.org/bookofthedaySee pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy