Books & Literature

The guitarist opens up about his music, his legendary journeys on the road with The Rolling Stones and his occasionally contentious relationship with lead singer Mick Jagger in a new memoir called Life.

David Grossman began working on his novel To the End of the Land while his son Uri was in the Israeli Army. He hoped it would protect him. It didn't. Uri was killed, and Grossman's fiction explores the fragility of families, nations and life itself.

After starring in movies like Rushmore and The Darjeeling Limited, Jason Schwartzman decided to move to TV. He talks about playing a novelist moonlighting as a private detective on HBO's Bored to Death -- and details what it was like to work with Wes Anderson on several films.

Roth, who has been writing novels for more than a half-century, explains how he comes up with his ideas — and why he continues to write every day. In his latest work, Nemesis, he imagines a fictional polio outbreak set in his hometown of Newark, N.J., during the 1940s.

Novelist Nicole Krauss artfully weaves disparate stories of love and loss into a devastating examination of the weight of memory on those left behind. Four narrators are connected by an antique desk separated from its original owner during the Holocaust.

Abraham Lincoln always thought slavery was unjust — but struggled with what to do once slavery ended. Historian Eric Foner traces how Lincoln's thoughts about slavery — and freed slaves — mirrored America's own transformation in The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery.

Gustave Flaubert was an apostle of le mot juste — using exactly the right word. Lydia Davis elegantly translates his masterpiece, Madame Bovary, in the same spirit. Davis' words lure readers back into Emma Bovary's sexy, scandalous and tragic tale.

James Franco doesn't just spend his time acting in the movies. The star of Milk, Howl and the forthcoming 127 Hours is also an accomplished writer and graduate student. He explains how he juggles his many roles — and why he continues to take on new challenges.

Young-ha Kim's latest thriller, Your Republic Is Calling You, is about a North Korean spy living courtly in Seoul for two decades -- when he's suddenly called to return to Pyongyang. Critic John Powers says the suspenseful novel offers a gripping look inside modern Korean culture.

How do you talk people out of truly desperate situations? Gary Noesner, who spent 30 years as a hostage negotiator for the FBI, details some of his most noteworthy cases and explains the techniques he used to defuse tense, potentially life-threatening encounters.

Writer David Rakoff's glass is never half full. In Half Empty, his latest essay collection, Rakoff explains the powers of pessimistic thought as he analyzes topics such as a pornography trade fair, his neurotic childhood and his recent cancer diagnosis.

Rebecca Traister's incisive analysis of misogyny and gender roles in the 2008 election takes on Tina Fey's satire, "Iron my Shirt" T-shirts and Hillary Clinton's "Night of the Imaginary Tears."

Many of Spencer's novels feature a turning point -- a dreadful, unplanned act committed by one of the characters. In his latest book, Man in the Woods, a carpenter accidentally kills a man, which leads him to question himself and his relationship with God.

Jonathan Franzen's new novel Freedom has been called "a masterpiece" by Time Magazine and has received rave reviews from critics. Franzen talks about the runaway success of his previous novel The Corrections, and the strong reaction elicited by Freedom.

Why all the adulatory attention, critics ask, for Jonathan Franzen's latest domestic drama about marriage and family? Even though Franzen gets more praise for doing what many fine female writers do "backwards and in heels," critic Maureen Corrigan says Freedom has earned its high praise.

The British director speaks with Fresh Air's Dave Davies about his new film, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, based on the graphic comic series by Bryan Lee O'Malley. Wright also directed the parody romantic zombie film Shaun of the Dead and the British TV sit-com, Spaced.

It's not unusual to get in a cab and find a paperback novel on the seat next to the driver. What makes Jack Clark's cab different is that he's both the driver and the author. Clark is a Chicago cab driver who's been driving for 30 years — and written three mystery novels.

NPR host Scott Simon became a father for the first time at the age of 50, when he and his wife Caroline adopted the first of their two daughters from China. He describes how he felt becoming a father relatively late in life, how his family changed — and how his daughters continue to inspire him, in a new memoir, Baby We Were Meant For Each Other.

The fictional Chinese detective Charlie Chan, who starred in a series of novels and movies between the 1920s and the 1950s, is often dismissed as a "Yellow Uncle Tom." But in the fascinating, sometimes maddening history Charlie Chan, Yunte Huang argues that Charlie is much more than a stereotype.