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 32  There are a total of 283 valid entries on the list.
Book cover for "The adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi"
Star rating for The adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi
Series:
Average Rating:
4.5 stars
Description:
The first book of "a new trilogy of magic and mayhem on the high seas in this tale of pirates and sorcerers, forbidden artifacts and ancient mysteries, in one woman's determined quest to seize a final chance at glory--and write her own legend ... Amina al-Sirafi should be content. After a storied and scandalous career as one of the Indian Ocean's most notorious pirates, she's survived backstabbing rogues, vengeful merchant princes, several husbands,...
Book cover for "All we were promised"
Star rating for All we were promised
Average Rating:
3.4 stars
Description:
"The paths of three young Black women in pre-Civil War Philadelphia unexpectedly and dangerously collide in this dramatic debut novel inspired by the explosive history of a city at war with itself. ... Inspired by the untold history of Pennsylvania Hall, one of Philadelphia's landmarks lost to violence, [this book tells] the story of ... the rebel, the socialite, and the fugitive fighting for each other in an American city straining to live up to...
Book cover for "The antidote"
Star rating for The antidote
Average Rating:
3 stars
Description:
"A ... Dust Bowl epic about five characters whose fates become entangled after a storm ravages their small Nebraska town"--
Book cover for "The bright sword"
Star rating for The bright sword
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
"Collum, a brilliantly gifted young knight from the provinces, arrives at Camelot two weeks after the Battle of Camlann, hoping to compete for a spot on the Round Table. But he finds the city empty, King Arthur dead, and the Table destroyed. The remaining six knights aren't the mighty heroes, the legends, like Lancelot and Gawain and Tristram and Galahad. These are the survivors, a grab-bag of minor oddball knights from the margins. ... Arthur's death...
Book cover for "Cahokia jazz"
Star rating for Cahokia jazz
Average Rating:
3.7 stars
Description:
"Like Golden Hill, Cahokia Jazz inhabits a different version of America, and like Golden Hill it has a propulsive and brilliantly twisty plot set within a fully imagined world. Only this world is full of fog, cigarette smoke, dubious motives, danger, and dark deeds. And in the main character of Joe Barrow, we have a hero of truly heroic proportions, and a troubled soul to fall in love with. One snowy night at the end of winter, Barrow and his partner...
Book cover for "The director"
Star rating for The director
Description:
"G.W. Pabst, one of cinema's greatest directors of the 20th century, was filming in France when the Nazis seized power. To escape the horrors of the new and unrecognizable Germany, he fled to Hollywood. But now, under the blinding California sun, the world-famous director suddenly looks like a nobody. Not even Greta Garbo, the Hollywood actress whom he made famous, can help him. When he receives word that his elderly mother is ill, he finds himself...
Book cover for "Enlightenment"
Star rating for Enlightenment
Average Rating:
2.5 stars
Description:
"Thomas Hart and Grace Macaulay have lived all their lives in the small Essex town of Aldleigh. Though separated in age by three decades, the pair are kindred spirits--torn between their commitment to religion and their desire to explore the world beyond their small Baptist community. It is two romantic relationships that will rend their friendship, and in the wake of this rupture, Thomas develops an obsession with a vanished nineteenth-century astronomer...
Book cover for "The fox wife"
Star rating for The fox wife
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
"A novel about dead bodies found in the snow, a mother seeking revenge, and old folk tales that may very well be true. New York Times bestselling author Yangsze Choo brilliantly explores a world of mortals and spirits, humans and beasts, and their dazzling intersection"--
Book cover for "Glassworks"
Star rating for Glassworks
Description:
In 1910, Agnes Carter makes the wrong choice in marriage. After years as an independent woman of fortune, influential with the board of a prominent university because of her financial donations, she is now subject to the whims of an abusive, spendthrift husband. But when Bohemian naturalist and glassblower Ignace Novak reignites Agnes's passion for science, Agnes begins to imagine a different life, and she sets her mind to getting it. Agnes's desperate...
Book cover for "Good night, Irene"
Star rating for Good night, Irene
Average Rating:
4.3 stars
Description:
"In 1943, Irene Woodward abandons an abusive fiancé in New York to enlist with the Red Cross and head to Europe. She makes fast friends in training with Dorothy Dunford, a towering Midwesterner with a ferocious wit. Together they are part of an elite group of women, nicknamed Donut Dollies, who command military vehicles called Clubmobiles at the front line, providing camaraderie and a taste of home that may be the only solace before troops head...
Book cover for "He who drowned the world"
Star rating for He who drowned the world
Series:
Radiant emperor volume 2.
Description:
Zhu Yuanzhang, the Radiant King, is riding high after her victory that tore southern China from its Mongol masters. Now she burns with a new desire: to seize the throne and crown herself emperor. But Zhu isn't the only one with imperial ambitions. Her neighbor in the south, the courtesan Madam Zhang, wants the throne for her husband--and she's strong enough to wipe Zhu off the map. To stay in the game, Zhu will have to gamble everything on a risky...
Book cover for "The house of doors"
Star rating for The house of doors
Description:
It's 1921, and at Cassowary House in the Straits Settlements of Penang, Robert Hamlyn is a well-to-do lawyer and his steely wife Lesley a society hostess. Their lives are invigorated when Willie, an old friend of Robert's, comes to stay. Willie Somerset Maugham is one of the greatest writers of his day, but he's beleaguered by an unhappy marriage, ill-health, and business interests that have gone badly awry. He is also struggling to write. The more...
Book cover for "I'll be right here"
Star rating for I'll be right here
Average Rating:
3 stars
Description:
"Immigrating alone from Paris to New York after the crucible of World War II, Gazala Benamar, still a teenager, becomes fast friends with two spirited sisters, Anne and Alma. When Gazala's lost, beloved brother Samir finally joins her in Manhattan, this contentious, inseparable foursome will last into the twenty-first century, becoming the beating heart of a multigenerational found family. These decades are marked by the business of everyday life...
Book cover for "My name is Emilia del Valle"
Star rating for My name is Emilia del Valle
Average Rating:
3 stars
Description:
"In San Francisco in 1866, an Irish nun, abandoned following a torrid relationship with a Chilean aristocrat, gives birth to a daughter named Emilia del Valle. Raised by a loving stepfather, Emilia grows into an independent thinker and a self-sufficient young woman. To pursue her passion for writing, she is willing to defy societal norms. At the age of seventeen, she begins to publish pulp fiction using a man's pen name. When these fictional worlds...
Book cover for "The naming of the birds"
Star rating for The naming of the birds
Average Rating:
3.5 stars
Description:
"Something is troubling Inspector Henry Cutter. Sergeant Gideon Bliss is accustomed to his ill-tempered outbursts, but lately the inspector has grown silent and withdrawn. Then, the murders begin. The first to die is the elderly Sir Aneurin Considine, a decorated but obscure civil servant who long ago retired to tend his orchids. If the motive for his killing is a mystery, the manner of his death is more bewildering still. The victims that follow...
Book cover for "The ornithologist's field guide to love"
Star rating for The ornithologist's field guide to love
Series:
Love's academic volume 1.
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
"Beth Pickering is on the verge of finally capturing the rare deathwhistler bird when Professor Devon Lockley swoops in, capturing both her bird and her imagination like a villain--albeit a handsome and charming villain, but that's beside the point. As someone highly educated in the ruthless discipline of ornithology, Beth knows trouble when she sees it, and she is determined to keep her distance from Devon. For his part, Devon has never been more...
Book cover for "Our share of night"
Star rating for Our share of night
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
"In 1981, a young father and son set out on a road trip across Argentina, devastated by the mysterious death of the wife and mother they both loved. United in grief, the pair travels to her family home near Iguazú Falls, where they must confront the horrific legacy she has bequeathed. For the woman they are grieving came from a family like no other--a centuries-old secret society called the Order that pursues eternal life through ghastly rituals....
Book cover for "Picks and shovels"
Star rating for Picks and shovels
Series:
Martin Hench volume 3.
Description:
"The year is 1986. The city is San Francisco. Here, Martin Hench will invent the forensic accountant--what a bounty hunter is to people, he is to money--but for now he's an MIT dropout odd-jobbing his way around a city still reeling from the invention of a revolutionary new technology that will change everything about crime forever. ...When Marty finds himself hired by Silicon Valley PC startup Fidelity Computing to investigate a group of disgruntled...
Book cover for "The porcelain moon"
Star rating for The porcelain moon
Author:
Description:
France, 1918. In the final days of the First World War, a young Chinese woman, Pauline Deng, runs away from her uncle's home in Paris to evade a marriage being arranged for her in Shanghai. To prevent the union, she needs the help of her cousin Theo, who is working as a translator for the Chinese Labour Corps in the French countryside. In the town of Noyelles-sur-Mer, Camille Roussel is planning her escape from an abusive marriage, and to end a love...
Book cover for "The prophets"
Star rating for The prophets
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
"A singular and stunning debut novel about the forbidden union between two enslaved young men on a Deep South plantation, the refuge they find in each other, and a betrayal that threatens their existence"--