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 38  There are a total of 283 valid entries on the list.
Book cover for "Accidentally engaged"
Star rating for Accidentally engaged
Author:
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
"Reena Manji doesn't love her career, her single status, and most of all, her family inserting themselves into every detail of her life. But when caring for her precious sourdough starters, Reena can drown it all out. At least until her father moves his newest employee across the hall--with hopes that Reena will marry him. But Nadim's not like the other Muslim bachelor-du-jours that her parents have dug up. If the Captain America body and the British...
Book cover for "Blood of the old kings"
Star rating for Blood of the old kings
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
"From award-winning Korean author Sung-il Kim & translated by the world-renowned Anton Hur, Blood of the Old Kings begins an epic journey unlike any other There is no escaping the Empire. Even in death, you will serve. In an Empire run on necromancy, dead sorcerers are the lifeblood. Their corpses are wrapped in chains and drained of magic to feed the unquenchable hunger for imperial conquest. Born with magic, Arienne has become resigned to her dark...
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 "Cloistered"
Star rating for Cloistered
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
Catherine Coldstream's memoir of life inside the world of a traditional Carmelite monastery and the intense personal journey into and out of an enclosed life of poverty, chastity and obedience.
Book cover for "The emperor of gladness"
Star rating for The emperor of gladness
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
One late summer evening in the post-industrial town of East Gladness, Connecticut, nineteen-year-old Hai stands on the edge of a bridge in pelting rain, ready to jump, when he hears someone shout across the river. The voice belongs to Grazina, an elderly widow succumbing to dementia, who convinces him to take another path. Bereft and out of options, he quickly becomes her caretaker. Over the course of the year, the unlikely pair develops a life-altering...
Book cover for "Everything is tuberculosis"
Star rating for Everything is tuberculosis
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
"In 2019, author John Green met Henry Reider, a young tuberculosis patient at Lakka Government Hospital in Sierra Leone. John beccame fast friends with Henry, a boy with spindly legs and a big, goofy smile. In the years since that first visit to Lakka, Green has become a vocal advocate for increased access to treatment and wider awareness of the healthcare inequities that allow this curable, preventable infectious disease to also be the deadliest,...
Book cover for "Everything we never had"
Star rating for Everything we never had
Author:
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
"Set in the 1930s to today, [this novel follows] four generations of Filipino American boys [who] grapple with identity, masculinity, and father-son relationships"--
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 "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 "The garden"
Star rating for The garden
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
"Two elderly sisters live alone on a crumbling estate at the end of the world, tending to a large walled garden to survive. One day a boy breaches the walls and throws their lives into chaos, forcing them to confront the dark truths about their existence, the garden itself, and the world as they've known it"--
Book cover for "Helen of Troy, 1993"
Star rating for Helen of Troy, 1993
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
"In the hills of Sparta, Tennessee, in the early nineties, Helen makes a drastic choice to break free from the life that stifles her: marriage, motherhood, the monotonous duties of a small-town housewife. But in this world of community and tradition, leaving isn't the same thing as staying gone... Rooted in the lush natural world of Middle Tennessee, this debut poetry collection explores Helen's isolation and rebellion as her expansive personality...
Book cover for "The hero of this book"
Star rating for The hero of this book
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
"Ten months after her mother's death, the narrator of The Hero of This Book takes a trip to London. The city was a favorite of her mother's, and as the narrator wanders the streets, she finds herself reflecting on her mother's life and their relationship. Thoughts of the past meld with questions of the future: Back in New England, the family home is now up for sale, its considerable contents already winnowed. The woman, a writer, recalls all that...
Book cover for "The horse"
Star rating for The horse
Average Rating:
5 stars
Book cover for "How to share an egg"
Star rating for How to share an egg
Average Rating:
5 stars
Book cover for "How to win an information war"
Star rating for How to win an information war
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
"From one of our leading experts on disinformation, this inventive biography of the rogue WWII propagandist Thomas Sefton Delmer confronts hard questions about the nature of information war: what if you can't fight lies with truth? Can a propaganda war ever be won? In the summer of 1941, Hitler ruled Europe from the Atlantic to the Black Sea. Britain was struggling to combat his powerful propaganda machine, crowing victory and smearing his enemies...
Book cover for "In memoriam"
Star rating for In memoriam
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
"It's 1914, and World War I is ceaselessly churning through thousands of young men on both sides of the fight. The violence of the front feels far away to Henry Gaunt, Sidney Ellwood and the rest of their classmates, all of whom are safely ensconced in their idyllic boarding school in the English countryside. They receive weekly dispatches from The Preshutian, their school newspaper, informing them of older classmates killed or wounded in action....
Book cover for "Kala"
Star rating for Kala
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
"In the seaside village of Kinlough, on Ireland's west coast, three old friends meet for the first time in years. They - Helen, Joe and Mush - were part of an original group of six inseparable teenagers in the summer of 2003, with motherless, reckless Kala Lannan at its white-hot center. But later that year, Kala disappeared without a trace. Now remains have been discovered in the woods-including a skull with a polaroid photo tucked inside--and the...
Book cover for "A marriage at sea"
Star rating for A marriage at sea
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
"The electrifying true story of a young couple shipwrecked at sea: a mind-blowing tale of obsession, survival, and partnership stretched to its limits. Maurice and Maralyn make an odd couple. He's a loner, awkward and obsessive; she's charismatic and ambitious. But they share a horror of wasting their lives. And they dream - as we all dream - of running away from it all. What if they quit their jobs, sold their house, bought a boat, and sailed away?...
Book cover for "My Black country"
Star rating for My Black country
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
"Country music had brought Randall and her activist mother together and even gave Randall a singular distinction in American music history: she is the first Black woman to cowrite a number one country hit, Trisha Yearwood's 'XXX's and OOO's.' Randall found inspiration and comfort in the sounds and history of the first family of Black country music: DeFord Bailey, Lil Hardin, Ray Charles, Charley Pride, and Herb Jeffries who, together, made up a community...
Book cover for "Nestlings"
Star rating for Nestlings
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
"Ana and Reid needed a lucky break. The horrifically complicated birth of their first child has left Ana paralyzed, bitter, and struggling: with mobility, with her relationship with Reid, with resentment for her baby. That's about to change with the words any New Yorker would love to hear--affordable housing lottery. They've won an apartment in the Deptford, one of Manhattan's most revered buildings with beautiful vistas of Central Park and stunning...