NPR's Book of the Day Folgen

Author Azar Nafisi has written a love letter to literature and reading in Read Dangerously: The Subversive Power of Literature in Troubled Times. She does this in a series of letters to her late father who passed on in 2004. Nafisi says that reading can help us really live and also help us, and has helped her, survive challenging times. Nafisi told NPR's Scott Simon that literature's purpose is to let us experience new worlds: "to come out of yourself, and join the other."Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Our books today give the reader a peek into showbiz. Sarah Polley was a child actor but that led to her being put into many dangerous situations, which she details in her new memoir, Run Toward The Danger. She told NPR's Sacha Pfeiffer that she's not sure kids should be acting in a professional environment at all. Next, Isaac Butler deep dives into method acting in his new book The Method: How the Twentieth Century Learned to Act. Butler told NPR's Scott Simon that method acting can create some beautiful performances but it's not an excuse to be terrible.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

At the center of author Naima Coster's novel What's Mine & Yours are two struggling mothers. Jade is a Black single mother who is trying to provide a better life for her son, and Lacey May is a white mother who is trying to give her daughters the life she never had. Their stories will intertwine over decades, starting with when Lacey May opposes the integration of her daughters' school – the same school Jade is trying to get her son into. Coster told NPR's Audie Cornish that fiction gives us a window into other people's lives but that does not mean we have to condone their actions.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy