NPR's Book of the Day Folgen

Author Karen Joy Fowler thinks John Wilkes Booth craved attention – and that he's gotten his fair share of it. So her new novel, Booth, instead focuses on his family. Their history might surprise you, given how John turned out. His grandfather was a part of the Underground Railroad. Fowler told NPR's Scott Simon that because of all we know about Booth's family, the path that John took is one of life's great mysteries. And, no, she hasn't solved it.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Author NoViolet Bulawayo's new novel Glory is quite openly based on Orwell's Animal Farm and the 2017 coup in Zimbabwe that ousted then president Robert Mugabe. Horses rule the country, dogs are the military, cows, goats, sheep, and pigs are the everyday people. The government that has been in control of the country Jidada for 40 years has fallen to rebellion. But, as these things go, it quickly turns sour. Bulawayo told NPR's Scott Simon that "it is simply an issue of the leadership kind of forgetting [...] why the people they – that fought to serve – made the sacrifice that they did."Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Poet Franny Choi knows that marginalized communities have been facing apocalypses forever. But in her new book, The World Keeps Ending, and the World Goes On, she uses their survival as a way to look forward. In this episode, she tells NPR's Leila Fadel how understanding that pain and resilience can ultimately be a source of hope. Then, former U.S. poet laureate Billy Collins discusses his new collection of very short poems, Musical Tables, with NPR's Scott Simon – and gets into the complexities of how sometimes saying less can offer so much more.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy