Cary Regional-NPR Readers Corner-Radio/Podcast

Explore the best in literature with NPR's Readers Corner. Discover new authors, dive into thought-provoking conversations, and find your next great read. From fiction to nonfiction, and everything in between, we've got you covered. Browse our curated selection of book reviews, author interviews, and reading recommendations to fuel your love of reading.

Showing 1 - 20 of 20  There are a total of 283 valid entries on the list.
Book cover for "Bibliophobia"
Star rating for Bibliophobia
Description:
"Have you ever read a book and felt so gutted by it that you knew you'd never recover? That it made you sit differently in your own skin? A book that complicated everything you believed in and changed the way you read the world around you forever? This is what Sarah Chihaya calls a "Life Ruiner". Sarah's Life Ruiner was The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison. When she read it in her high school English class, she could no longer pretend not to notice how...
Book cover for "Careless people"
Star rating for Careless people
Average Rating:
4.3 stars
Description:
An insider account charting one woman's career at the heart of one of the most influential companies on the planet, Careless People gives you a front-row seat to Facebook, the decisions that have shaped world events in recent decades, and the people who made them.
Book cover for "Conversations with people who hate me"
Star rating for Conversations with people who hate me
Description:
"Dylan Marron's work has racked up millions of views and worldwide support. From his acclaimed Every Single Word video series highlighting the lack of diversity in Hollywood to his web series Sitting in Bathrooms with Trans People, Marron has explored some of today's biggest social issues. Yet, according to some strangers on the internet, Marron is a "moron," a "beta male," and a "talentless hack." Rather than running from this online vitriol, Marron...
Book cover for "A different kind of power"
Star rating for A different kind of power
Description:
"What if we could redefine leadership? What if kindness came first? Jacinda Ardern grew up the daughter of a police officer in small-town New Zealand, but as the 40th Prime Minister of her country, she commanded global respect for her empathetic leadership that put people first. This is the remarkable story of how a Mormon girl plagued by self-doubt made political history and changed our assumptions of what a global leader can be."--
Book cover for "Easily slip into another world"
Star rating for Easily slip into another world
Description:
"An autobiography of one of the towering figures of contemporary American music and a powerful meditation on history, race, capitalism and art"--
Book cover for "Fahrenheit-182"
Star rating for Fahrenheit-182
Author:
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
"This is the story of an angst-filled kid from the desert, navigating the chaos of his parents' bitter divorce and searching for his place in the world. Each move across the country was a chance to reinvent himself, switching identities from dork to goth to skate punk, and eventually meeting his best friend who just so happens to be his musical soulmate. With sharp humor and raw honesty, Fahrenheit-182 takes readers through Mark's formative years...
Book cover for "Fearless and free"
Star rating for Fearless and free
Notes:
Praised as a powerful and significant book
Description:
"Published in English for the first time, this is the memoir of the fabulous, rule-breaking, one-of-a-kind Josephine Baker"--
Book cover for "Grief is for people"
Star rating for Grief is for people
Average Rating:
4.3 stars
Description:
"A memoir about the suicide of the author's closest friend and the ensuing grief process"--
Book cover for "How to share an egg"
Star rating for How to share an egg
Average Rating:
5 stars
Book cover for "It's only drowning"
Star rating for It's only drowning
Description:
"When a former speechwriter for President Obama starts surfing at the age of thirty-five--the rough equivalent of beginning guitar lessons on your deathbed--he is taken on an unexpected journey in which he has to learn from the only other surfer he knows: his brother-in-law Matt, a Joe Rogan superfan"--
Book cover for "The jailhouse lawyer"
Star rating for The jailhouse lawyer
Description:
"A searing and ultimately hopeful account of Calvin Duncan, 'the most extraordinary jailhouse lawyer of our time' (Sister Helen Prejean), and his thirty-year path through Angola after a wrongful murder conviction, his coming-of-age as a legal mind while imprisoned, and his continued advocacy for those on the inside Calvin Duncan was nineteen when he was incarcerated for a 1981 New Orleans murder he didn't commit. The victim of wildly incompetent public...
Book cover for "Kuleana"
Star rating for Kuleana
Description:
"From an early age, Sara Kehaulani Goo was enchanted by her family's land in Hawai'i. The vast area on the rugged shores of Maui's east side--given by King Kamehameha III in 1848--extends from mountain to sea, encompassing ninety acres of lush, undeveloped rainforest jungle along the rocky coastline and a massive sixteenth-century temple with a mysterious past. When a property tax bill arrives with a 500 percent increase, Sara and her family members...
Book cover for "The man who could move clouds"
Star rating for The man who could move clouds
Description:
"For Ingrid Rojas Contreras, magic runs in the family. Growing up in the Colombia of the 1980's and 1990's in a house where "what did you dream?" was asked in place of "how are you?" her world was laced with prophecy and violence. Her maternal grandfather, Nono, was a renowned curandero, a community healer gifted with the ability to talk to the dead, tell the future, treat the sick, and move the clouds. As a young girl, Rojas Contreras eavesdropped...
Book cover for "The mango tree"
Star rating for The mango tree
Description:
When journalist Annabelle Tometich picks up the phone one June morning, she isn't expecting a collect call from an inmate at the Lee County Jail. And when she accepts, she certainly isn't prepared to hear her mother's voice on the other end of the line. However, explaining the situation to her younger siblings afterwards was easy; all she had to say was, "Mom shot at some guy. He was messing with her mangoes." They immediately understood. Answering...
Book cover for "Nothing more of this land"
Star rating for Nothing more of this land
Description:
"From award-winning journalist Joseph Lee, a sweeping, personal exploration of Indigenous identity and the challenges facing Indigenous people around the world"--Provided by publisher.
Book cover for "Patriot"
Star rating for Patriot
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
Alexei Navalny began writing Patriot shortly after his near-fatal poisoning in 2020. It is the full story of his life: his youth, his call to activism, his marriage and family, his commitment to challenging a world super-power determined to silence him, and his total conviction that change cannot be resisted--and will come. In vivid, page-turning detail, including never-before-seen correspondence from prison, Navalny recounts, among other things,...
Book cover for "Raising hare"
Star rating for Raising hare
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
A moving and fascinating meditation on freedom, trust, loss, and our relationship with the natural world, explored through the story of one woman's unlikely friendship with a wild hare.
Book cover for "This beautiful, ridiculous city"
Star rating for This beautiful, ridiculous city
Author:
Description:
"On her first night in New York City, Kay Sohini sits on the tarmac of JFK Airport making an inventory of everything she's left behind in India: her family, friends, home, and gaslighting ex-boyfriend. In the wake of that untethering she realizes two things: she's finally made it to the city of her literary heroes--Kerouac, Plath, Bechdel--and the trauma she's endured has created gaping holes in her memory. As Kay begins the work of piecing herself...
Book cover for "When the going was good"
Star rating for When the going was good
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
"From the pages of Vanity Fair to the red carpets of Hollywood, editor Graydon Carter's memoir revives the glamorous heyday of print magazines when they were at the vanguard of American culture."--
Book cover for "Whiskey tender"
Star rating for Whiskey tender
Description:
"Whiskey Tender is a memoir of family and survival, coming-of-age on and off the reservation, and the frictions between being raised to strive towards the American dream while also coming into an understanding of how the narratives of the Quechan Nation and Laguna Pueblo heritages have been excluded from the central mythologies and structures of America"--