NPR's Book of the Day

In this episode, two cookbook authors recount their relationship with food and how it's led them to unlikely places. First, actor and TikTok sensation Tabitha Brown tells NPR's Michel Martin about going vegan and connecting with an online audience through plant-based recipes. Then, restaurant owner Kardea Brown talks to Here & Now's Celeste Headlee about connecting with her family's roots in the kitchen and honoring the Gullah Geechee people's traditions.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Blair Braverman knows the great outdoors. So it makes sense that the American adventurer and "Naked And Afraid" contestant's first novel, Small Game, takes place in the wilderness. She tells NPR's Ayesha Rascoe about some of her own fears while competing in the Discovery Channel series – and how they manifested themselves in her first foray into fiction.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Isabella and Ha are twin sisters, but they grew up oceans apart. Isabella was adopted by a white American couple in Illinois, while Ha was raised by her maternal aunt in Vietnam. In this episode, journalist Erika Hayasaki discusses her reporting of over five years, which follows how the girls came back together and built a relationship.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Bono probably needs no introduction at this point. In this episode, the U2 frontman, philanthropist and now author sits down with NPR's Rachel Martin to talk about his new memoir, Surrender. He explains how his connection to a higher spiritual power works with rock-and-roll across U2's discography, and why he's reached a point in his life where he just wants to "shut up and listen."Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Jonathan Escoffery's debut collection of short stories follows the American-born son of Jamaican immigrants finding his place in the world and within his own family. Inspired by some of his own life experiences, If I Survive You questions what it means to belong, how culture is shared across generations, and why people migrate in the first place. Escoffery tells Here & Now's Deepa Fernandes that he wanted to disrupt the American savior complex, and instead acknowledge U.S. imperialism's role in pushing people out of their homes.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

The two books in today's episode explore how we construct meaning from the music we listen to. First, record producer Susan Rogers talks to WBUR's Robin Young about her book, This Is What It Sounds Like, which breaks down the science behind what draws different types of listeners to particular songs. Then, author Francesca Royster traces the relationship between Black identity and country music in her book, Black Country Music: Listening for Revolutions. She tells NPR's Juana Summers that as a queer Black woman, listening to country can feel a lot like coming out.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

In this episode, NPR's Scott Simon pays best-selling author John Irving a visit in his Toronto home. Across from Irving's family photographs and slanted writing station, they discuss the writer's expansive career, the prevalence of gender and sexual politics in his novels and the newfound personal connection he can make with his characters.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

The U.S. is highly polarized – and author Anand Giridharadas thinks writing off people with different opinions is only going to make things worse. In this episode, he tells NPR's Steve Inskeep about some of the activists and leaders he talked to for his new book, The Persuaders, and how their mission to actually listen and engage with the other side of the political aisle could actually save democracy.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Author Dani Shapiro spent 15 years working on Signal Fires, a novel about how a single accident changes the course of one family's life. In this episode, she tells NPR's Scott Simon how her own trajectory to completing the book upended what she thought she knew about herself and her upbringing.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Abraham Lincoln made history in 1863 when he issued the Emancipation Proclamation, effectively freeing enslaved people across the U.S. But he expected it to cost him reelection. In his new book, And There Was Light, Pulitzer prize-winning biographer Jon Meacham dives into how Lincoln's moral vision allowed him to stand his ground, even in the face of great criticism. Meacham tells NPR's Steve Inskeep that Lincoln's views on God and morality can teach us a thing or two in today's political climate.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy