Literature

Literature

11:56 am

Sat January 25, 2014

Before He Fell To Earth, 'The Little Prince' Was Born In N.Y.

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A detail of a drawing from The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery.

Credit Graham S. Haber / Courtesy of The Morgan Library & Museum

<p>An early illustration for <em>The Little Prince</em> by Antoine Saint-Exupery.</p><p></p>

Credit Graham S. Haber / Courtesy of The Morgan Library and Museum

An early illustration for <em>The Little Prince</em> by Antoine Saint-Exupery.

Credit Graham S. Haber / Courtesy of The Morgan Library and Museum

An early illustration for <em>The Little Prince</em> by Antoine Saint-Exupery.

Credit Graham S. Haber / Courtesy of The Morgan Library and Museum

An early illustration for <em>The Little Prince</em> by Antoine Saint-Exupery.

Credit Graham S. Haber / Courtesy of The Morgan Library and Museum

An early illustration for <em>The Little Prince</em> by Antoine Saint-Exupery.

Credit Graham S. Haber / Courtesy of The Morgan Library and Museum

An early manuscript for <em>The Little Prince</em> by Antoine Saint-Exupery.

Credit Graham S. Haber / Courtesy of The Morgan Library and Museum

An early illustration for <em>The Little Prince</em> by Antoine Saint-Exupery.

Credit Graham S. Haber / Courtesy of The Morgan Library and Museum

An early illustration for <em>The Little Prince</em> by Antoine Saint-Exupery.

Credit Graham S. Haber / Courtesy of The Morgan Library and Museum

Published in 1943, The Little Prince is one of the world's most beloved books. AuthorAntoine Saint-Exupery wrote and illustrated the book in New York, between Long Island and Manhattan.

Credit Graham S. Haber / Courtesy of The Morgan Library and Museum

Antoine de Saint-Exupery in 1944.

Credit John Phillips / Courtesy of The John and Annamaria Phillips Foundation

By Margot Adler

Originally published on Sat January 25, 2014 1:31 pm

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One of the world's most beloved books is The Little Prince by Antoine Saint-Exupery. Published in 1943, almost two million copies are sold every year, in about 250 languages.

If asked where you think the book was written, you might say Paris. You'd be wrong. Try Long Island — as in Long Island, N.Y.

When the late Nikos Kefalidis bought the house on Beven Road in Northport, Long Island, in the late 1970s, he knew that 30 years before, Saint-Exupery had written and illustrated part of Le Petit Prince in that house.

Literature

7:00 pm

Mon January 20, 2014

January 20, 2014 Shelf Discovery: Pretenders by Lisi Harrison

By Kristin Dreyer Kramer

On this week’s Shelf Discovery, Kristin goes back to high school with Lisi Harrison’s Pretenders.

Title: Pretenders

Author: Lisi Harrison

Pages: 212

Publisher: Poppy

ISBN: 978-0316222440

And read Kristin's full review on NightsAndWeekends.com.

Literature

5:20 pm

Fri January 17, 2014

Book News: Hilary Mantel's New Book Reportedly Will Star Margaret Thatcher

Hilary Mantel accepted the award for Costa Book Of The Year in January 2013 in London.

Credit Stuart Wilson / Getty Images

By Annalisa Quinn

Originally published on Fri January 17, 2014 8:37 am

The daily lowdown on books, publishing, and the occasional author behaving badly.

Literature

7:00 pm

Mon January 13, 2014

January 13, 2014 Shelf Discovery: Buzz by Anders de la Motte

By Kristin Dreyer Kramer

On this week’s Shelf Discovery, Kristin disconnects with Anders de la Motte’s Buzz.

Title: Buzz

Author: Anders de la Motte

Pages: 322

Publisher: Atria / Emily Bestler Books

ISBN: 978-1476712918

And read Kristin's full review on NightsAndWeekends.com.

Literature

11:06 am

Thu January 9, 2014

A Former Child Soldier Imagines 'Tomorrow' In Sierra Leone

Orphaned by the civil war in Sierra Leone, Ishmael Beah told his own story in <em>A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier. </em><em>Radiance of Tomorrow</em> is his first novel.

Credit John Madere / Sarah Crichton Books/Farrar, Straus and Giroux,

By NPR Staff

Originally published on Fri January 10, 2014 10:21 am

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Ishmael Beah was just barely a teenager when his town became engulfed in Sierra Leone's civil war in the mid-1990s. In his 2007 memoir, A Long Way Gone, Beah describes how, after he lost his parents and brothers to the conflict, he wandered the countryside with a band of boys and was recruited as a child soldier by government forces. The memoir describes the hellish atrocities committed by child soldiers on both sides of the conflict.

Literature

7:00 pm

Mon January 6, 2014

January 6, 2014 Shelf Discovery: Once Upon a Lie by Maggie Barbieri

By Kristin Dreyer Kramer

On this week’s Shelf Discovery, Kristin reminisces about the past with Maggie Barbieri’s Once Upon a Lie.

Title: Once Upon a Lie

Author: Maggie Barbieri

Pages: 290

Publisher: Minotaur Books

ISBN: 978-1250011671

And read Kristin's full review on NightsAndWeekends.com.

Literature

7:00 pm

Mon December 30, 2013

December 30, 2013 Shelf Discovery: Roomies by Sara Zarr and Tara Altebrando

By Kristin Dreyer Kramer

On this week’s Shelf Discovery, Kristin gears up for college with the characters in Sara Zarr and Tara Altebrando’s Roomies.

Title: Roomies

Author: Sara Zarr and Tara Altebrando

Pages: 216

Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

ISBN: 978-0316217491

And read Kristin's full review on NightsAndWeekends.com.

Literature

7:00 pm

Mon December 23, 2013

December 23, 2013 Shelf Discovery: The Fire Witness by Lars Kepler

By Kristin Dreyer Kramer

On this week’s Shelf Discovery, Kristin investigates the audio version of Lars Kepler’s The Fire Witness.

Title: The Fire Witness

Author: Lars Kepler

CDs: 12 (15 hours)

Publisher: Macmillan Audio

ISBN: 978-1427231567

And read Kristin's full review on NightsAndWeekends.com.

Literature

12:02 pm

Thu December 19, 2013

Hear, Here: Four Audiobooks With A Brand-New Sound

Think a graphic novel is too visual to make a good audiobook? Think again. The audio version of <em>Civil War </em>uses sound effects, music and a full cast to bring the superhero story to life.

Credit Courtesy of GraphicAudio

By NPR Staff

Originally published on Thu December 19, 2013 11:08 am

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If your holiday shopping trip includes a stop at the bookstore, you might consider adding audiobooks to your gift list. And this year, as you slip on headphones to sample the offerings, what you hear might surprise you.

According to Robin Whitten, the founder and editor of AudioFile magazine, the genre has far surpassed the conventions of the taped readings of yore.

Literature

7:00 pm

Mon December 16, 2013

December 16, 2013 Shelf Discovery: Nowhere Nice by Rick Gavin

By Kristin Dreyer Kramer

On this week’s Shelf Discovery, Kristin returns to the Delta with Nick and Desmond in Rick Gavin’s Nowhere Nice.

Title: Nowhere Nice

Author: Rick Gavin

Pages: 282

Publisher: Minotaur Books

ISBN: 978-0312583194

And read Kristin's full review on NightsAndWeekends.com.

Literature

11:59 am

Mon December 16, 2013

Poem: Nelson Mandela, 'An Ordinary Man'

Credit Jonathan Blakely/NPR

By NPR Staff

Originally published on Fri December 13, 2013 6:56 pm

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On Sunday, South Africans will lay to rest the remains of Nelson Mandela.

The legacy left by the activist and political prisoner who transformed a nation and became president is being remembered by politicians, historians and artists.

Among them is Thabiso Mohare, a young South African spoken word artist who performs under the name Afurakan. He wrote a poem for NPR about Mandela called "An Ordinary Man."

Literature

4:59 pm

Sun December 15, 2013

A Personal 'Report From The Interior' Of Author Paul Auster

A prolific author, Paul Auster has published dozens of works of fiction, nonfiction and poetry.

Credit Lotte Hansen / Courtesy of Henry Holt & Co.

By editor

Originally published on Mon December 16, 2013 1:32 pm

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Fans of the writer Paul Auster know an enormous amount about him. His novels often draw on autobiographical details, and he has written five books that are explicitly about his own life.

Last year, he published a memoir called Winter Journal that tells the story of his life through the story of his own body — every scar and blemish. Now Auster has published a companion autobiography of his intellectual self, called Report from the Interior.

Literature

8:29 am

Sun December 15, 2013

54 Days In The Eternal City: A Christian 'Pilgrimage' For Lent

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Rome's St. Zeno chapel was built by Pope St. Paschal I in honor of his mother. The ceiling, a gold mosaic, was intended as an interpretation of heaven.

Credit Stephen Weigel / Courtesy of Basic Books

The triumphal arch at St. Praxedes leads the way to a crypt that holds the remains of 2,300 martyrs.

Credit Stephen Weigel / Courtesy of Basic Books

By editor

Originally published on Wed December 18, 2013 12:31 am

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Each year, millions of people from different faiths make religious journeys. They travel far, to Mecca, Jerusalem, the Ganges River or Lourdes, France, to walk the paths of prophets, saints and martyrs.

"Pilgrimage is something built into the human condition," says George Weigel, author of Roman Pilgrimage: The Station Churches. "There seems to be something hardwired into us, spiritually, that the idea of a journey from A to B becomes part of the rhythm of the spiritual life."

Literature

11:50 am

Fri December 13, 2013

An Elegy For Mandela Looks Back In Mourning, Forward In Hope

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On Dec. 8, three days after Nelson Mandela's death, a girl in Johannesburg lights a candle in his memory. Poet Mbali Vilakazi has written an elegy for Mandela that asks the next generation of South Africans to continue his legacy.

Credit Pedro Ugarte / AFP/Getty Images

Poet Mbali Vilakazi has worked as a producer of <em>Radio Workshop</em>, a weekly radio show for South African youth, and as a curator for the Africa Centre's Badilisha Poetry Radio.

Credit Sally Shorkend / Courtesy of Mbali Vilakazi

By NPR Staff

Originally published on Fri December 13, 2013 7:52 am

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In his youth, Nelson Mandela cut a dashing figure. He was a revolutionary, an outlaw — by the early 1960s, he was living underground. And he had a nickname to match: he was known as the Black Pimpernel.

Literature

11:34 am

Tue December 10, 2013

Book News: 500 Authors Demand International Bill Of Digital Rights

Canadian author Margaret Atwood, pictured in 2009, is part of a group of writers lobbying the United Nations over digital rights.

Credit John MacDougall / AFP/Getty Images

By Annalisa Quinn

Originally published on Tue December 10, 2013 8:34 am

The daily lowdown on books, publishing, and the occasional author behaving badly.

Literature

7:00 pm

Mon December 9, 2013

December 9, 2013 Shelf Discovery: Game

By Kristin Dreyer Kramer

On this week’s Shelf Discovery, Kristin answers the call of Anders de la Motte’s Game.

Title: Game

Author: Anders de la Motte

Pages: 386

Publisher: Atria / Emily Bestler Books

ISBN: 978-1476712888

And read Kristin's full review on NightsAndWeekends.com.

Literature

6:13 pm

Sun December 8, 2013

'Getting Away With Murder': A Study Of Benazir Bhutto's Death

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Heraldo Munoz led the United Nations inquiry into Benazir Bhutto's assassination.

Credit J.J. Sulin / Courtesy of W.W. Norton & Company

By NPR Staff

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In 2007, Benazir Bhutto — twice prime minister of Pakistan and then-leader of the Pakistan People's Party — was killed in a suicide bombing attack that claimed 38 lives. The factors at play in her assassination, however, reached deeper than many imagined.

In his new book, Getting Away With Murder, Heraldo Munoz portrays the tense political climate that surrounded Bhutto's return to politics and examines the circumstances of her death.

Literature

8:05 am

Sat December 7, 2013

Don't Call It Fanfic: Writers Rework Their Favorite Stories

By Lynn Neary

Originally published on Fri December 27, 2013 12:43 pm

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When writers finish a book, they may think they've had the last word. But sometimes another writer will decide there's more to the story. The madwoman Bertha from Jane Eyre and the father in Little Women are just two examples of secondary characters who have been given a fuller life in a new work of fiction based on a classic novel.

Literature

7:00 pm

Mon December 2, 2013

December 2, 2013 Shelf Discovery: Compliments of a Friend

By Kristin Dreyer Kramer

On this week’s Shelf Discovery, Kristin shops for shoes with Compliments of a Friend by Susan Isaacs

Title: Compliments of a Friend

Author: Susan Isaacs

Pages: 44

Publisher: Open Road Media

AISN: B00G2V621C

And read Kristin's full review on NightsAndWeekends.com.

Literature

7:00 pm

Mon November 25, 2013

November 25, 2013 Shelf Discovery: Reality Boy

By Kristin Dreyer Kramer

On this week’s Shelf Discovery, Kristin takes a break from reality with A. S. King’s Reality Boy.

Title: Reality Boy

Author: A. S. King

Pages: 251

Publisher: Little, Brown and Company

ISBN: 978-0316222709

And read Kristin's full review on NightsAndWeekends.com.

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