NPR's Book of the Day

Poet Hanif Abdurraqib discusses how losing his mother and close friends shaped his spirituality. He explores the role of music in connecting with memories of loved ones and finding solace in daily life. Abdurraqib also shares his experiences dealing with depression and anxiety, highlighting the importance of spirituality in facing grief.

In the midst of the #MeToo movement in 2017, Claire Dederer posed a difficult question in The Paris Review: "What Do We Do With the Art of Monstrous Men?" From that viral essay comes her new book, Monsters, which examines how we morally engage with – or don't – musicians, authors and actors whose work we love, when we condemn their personal actions. In today's episode, Dederer tells NPR's Ayesha Rascoe how this question first arose for her around Roman Polanski movies, and how complex and personal it is to try to separate the art from the artist.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Johannes Vermeer's 1664 masterpiece "The Concert" was stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in 1990. That real - still unsolved - case is at the heart of Daniel Silva's new thriller, The Collector. Despite his initial reluctance, art restorer and former Israeli intelligence officer Gabriel Allon is enlisted to hunt down the painting, along with an unexpected collaborator. In today's episode, Silva speaks with NPR's Scott Simon about his distaste for art theft and his reasons for turning villains into protagonists.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Today's episode is all about young readers and the ways they interact with complicated emotions. First, NPR's Julie Depenbrock speaks with Jon Klassen about his new book, The Skull, inspired by a folk tale about a little girl who runs away from home. She befriends the skull and they form a close bond despite the strangeness of the situation. Then, NPR's Miles Parks talks with author Kevin Johnson and illustrator Kitt Thomas about their new book, Cape, which chronicles a young boy's first experience with grief.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Aurora James is the designer behind the fashion brand Brother Vellies and the 15% pledge, an initiative that encourages major retailers to stock more work by Black-owned businesses on their shelves. In her new memoir, Wildflower, she describes the complicated upbringing that led her to her current work as a creative and activist. In today's episode, she tells NPR's Michel Martin why it was so important for her to work with African artisans and the misconceptions and biases she hopes to break down in the world of high fashion.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

In their new book, Nobody's Fool, psychology professor Daniel Simons and cognitive scientist Christopher Chabris make the case that people don't just fall for scams because they're gullible. The way our brains work – the way they reason and trust – can often lead us to believe a piece of misinformation or to click on a phishing scam. In today's episode, the authors explain to NPR's Sacha Pfeiffer why truth bias and familiarity can work against us, but that skepticism and fact-checking can help us fight back.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

In today's episode, author Nishanth Injam tells NPR's Sacha Pfeiffer that when he first arrived in the U.S. from India, he wondered if he'd made a huge mistake. That tension he grappled with is now at the heart of his debut collection of short stories, The Best Possible Experiences, which chronicles the expansive ups and downs of being an immigrant, both at home and in a new place.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

The new 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

Today's episode takes us back in time to American society in the '70s. First, NPR's Scott Simon speaks with author Dennis Lehane about Small Mercies, his new novel about the desegregation of Boston public schools and a mother's plight to find her missing daughter during that time. Then, Simon chats with CNN anchor Jake Tapper about his book All the Demons Are Here, a family drama that involves a U.S. marine, a journalist, and their politician father making sense of post-Vietnam and post-Watergate disillusionment.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Ana Menéndez's novel The Apartment starts decades – maybe centuries – before the art deco building named The Helena is built in South Beach, and ends eons into the future. What takes place in apartment 2B in the in-between is where her story lives. From a Cuban concert pianist to a refugee, Menéndez dives into who lives at The Helena and how their time there shapes them. In today's episode, she tells NPR's Ari Shapiro why she wanted time to become its own character in the book, which she spent more than a decade writing.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy