NPR's Book of the Day Folgen

Vauhini Vara started writing some of the stories in This Is Salvaged when she was still in her 20s, two decades ago. From the complicated tension between two sisters to the way one mother chooses to selectively share information with her daughter, the stories in the book focus on the way people — primarily women — can struggle to connect with one another despite their best efforts. In today's episode, Vara tells Here & Now's Deepa Fernandes how time away provided perspective on her characters, and how she uses awkward or uncomfortable situations as jumping off points for her writing.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

The novel The Rachel Incident is rooted around a wonderful, messy friendship. Rachel and James live together, party, and get themselves into a peculiar situation with an older married couple. In today's episode, author Caroline O'Donoghue speaks with NPR's Miles Parks about how abortion and sexual repression in Irish society play a large role in Rachel's early adulthood. O'Donoghue also shares why it was important to her that the novel be told from an older Rachel's perspective, reflecting on her youth.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

This year, the novel Fear of Flying — which broke all sorts of unwritten rules around marriage, sex, and women's bodily autonomy when first published — turned 50 years old. So for today's episode, we dug up a 1973 interview with author Erica Jong and NPR's Steven Banker where Jong speaks frankly about the constraints women felt at the time about making art, and how their husbands would be perceived as a result. Then, NPR's Sarah McCammon speaks with Jong's daughter, Molly Jong-Fast, about the legacy of Fear of Flying, second-wave feminism and the overturning of Roe v. Wade.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy