NPR's Book of the Day Folgen

Artem is a 12-year-old Ukranian boy who likes to spend summer days on his grandfather’s sunflower farm swimming with his younger brother, Yuri. But one night in February 2022, they hear sirens and bomb blasts – and soon, they’re fleeing war. Sam Wachman’s debut novel The Sunflower Boys was inspired by his ancestral ties to Ukraine and his experience volunteering with Ukrainian children. In today’s episode, he joins NPR’s Scott Simon for a conversation about national history, the boys he tutored, and the sense of mission behind his writing.To listen to Book of the Day sponsor-free and support NPR's book coverage, sign up for Book of the Day+ at plus.npr.org/bookofthedayLearn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

For Martha Barnette, griping about grammatical pet peeves is one of the least interesting ways to talk about language. Instead, the co-host of the radio show “A Way with Words” says she’d rather think about word origins, regional dialects, slang, or that phrase your grandma used to say. Her new book Friends with Words is full of surprising facts about language. In today’s episode, she talks with Here & Now’s Peter O’Dowd about the “spark word” that launched her language journey, some of her favorite etymologies, and why people hate the word moist.To listen to Book of the Day sponsor-free and support NPR's book coverage, sign up for Book of the Day+ at plus.npr.org/bookofthedayLearn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Author Kate Riley says her book Ruth was partly based on her year spent living in an insular religious community. The debut novel explores what it’s like to live in a world without total access to information, despite the protagonist's intense curiosity. In today’s episode, Riley speaks with NPR’s Ayesha Rascoe about the Peace Church tradition, how her interior life shaped the novel, and why this might be Riley’s first and last book.To listen to Book of the Day sponsor-free and support NPR's book coverage, sign up for Book of the Day+ at plus.npr.org/bookofthedayLearn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy