NPR's Book of the Day Folgen

Who would Travis Bickle– the protagonist of the 1976 film Taxi Driver – be today? That question sparked the new novel by Priya Guns, Your Driver Is Waiting. It follows Damani, a queer Tamil ride-share driver who is struggling to pay her bills while people on the street around her protest for cause after cause that she can't seem to keep track of. Then she meets Jolene, who is the epitome of the privilege Damani does not have. As Guns tells NPR's Scott Simon, it's a relationship that forces her protagonist to reckon with her own preconceptions of wealth and whiteness.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Katherine May, like so many other people, found herself submerged in anxiety and restlessness during COVID-19 lockdowns. But as cities reopened, she looked for new ways to immerse herself in the awe of the natural world around her. That journey is at the center of her new book, Enchantment. And as she tells NPR's Rachel Martin, her relationship with her faith, prayer and her definition of God played a big role.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Ruthy Ramirez, the 13-year-old middle child of a Puerto Rican family in Staten Island, vanished without a trace. But more than a decade later, as the family still feels the weight of her absence, one of her sisters spots a woman who she thinks might be her sister on a reality TV show. In her new novel, What Happened to Ruthy Ramirez, author Claire Jimenez explores the way loss, violence and spectacle impacts the women in the Ramirez family. And as she tells NPR's Ayesha Rascoe, there's a big divide in the way reality tv treats white women and women of color.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy