When Rachel Somerstein had an emergency C-section with her first child, the anesthesia didn't work. She recounts her own experience and the history of C-sections in her book, Invisible Labor.
Why is the Mona Lisa the most famous painting in the world? Why are The Beatles, well, The Beatles? Behavioral economist Cass Sunstein explores the alchemy of fame.
Did you know on average a sloth will fall out of a tree once a week for its entire life? It's true — and the inspiration for Brian Cronin and Doreen Cronin's new children's book, Mama in the Moon.
This week Code Switch digs into The Ministry of Time, a new book that author Kailene Bradley describes as a "romance about imperialism." It focuses on real-life Victorian explorer Graham Gore, who died on a doomed Arctic expedition in 1847. But in this novel, time travel is possible and Gore is brought to the 21st century where he's confronted with the fact that everyone he's ever known is dead, that the British Empire has collapsed, and that perhaps he was a colonizer.
Stephen King is out with a new collection of short stories. As you might expect from the reigning King of Horror, some are terrifying. Some are creepy. Others are laugh-out-loud funny.
McDonald says that earlier in his career, he tended to avoid writing about himself directly in songs. He opens up about his life and career in the memoir, What a Fool Believes.
There's trouble in the town of Bad Göodsburg! A wishing well has stopped working! NPR's Tamara Keith talks with Jess Hannigan about her new children's book, "Spider in the Well."
Wallace is known for his celebrity profiles, but his new memoir, Another Word For Love, is about his own life, growing up unhoused, Black and queer, and getting his start as a writer at the age of 40.
System of a Down singer Serj Tankian covers fleeing the Lebanese Civil War as a child, advocating for recognition of the Armenian Genocide, and why his band hasn't made a new album since 2005.
Our culture is full of stories about what it's like to be young: to find yourself, to fall in love, to leave home. But there aren't nearly as many scripts for what middle age might look like, especially for women. This week, host Brittany Luse is joined by author and filmmaker Miranda July, whose new novel 'All Fours' dives deep into the mystery and miracle of being a middle aged woman.
Want to be featured on the show? Record a question via voice memo for 'Hey Brittany' and send it to ibam@npr.org.
The Bikini Kill frontwoman pioneered the "riot grrrl" movement in the 1990s. "I thought of myself as a feminist performance artist who was in a punk band," Hanna says.
Daniel Olivas's novel puts a new spin on the age-old Frankenstein story. In this retelling, 12 million "reanimated" people provide a cheap workforce for the United States...and face a very familiar type of bigotry.
The WNBA star, who is six feet, nine inches, says she felt like a zoo animal in prison. "The guards would literally come open up the little peep hole, look in, and then I would hear them laughing."
Climate journalist Zoë Schlanger says research suggests that plants are indeed "intelligent" in complex ways that challenge our understanding of agency and consciousness. Her book is The Light Eaters.