NPR's Book of the Day Folgen

Juhea Kim's debut novel, Beasts of a Little Land, is about Korea's decades-long fight for independence and the lives it impacted. Kim wanted the novel to focus on people who often get overlooked, which is why one of the main characters in the novel is a courtesan, or a sex worker. Kim told NPR's Elissa Nadworny that "these characters show how we can live in a meaningful way, even when the world is falling apart, even when the sky is falling down."Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Archbishop Desmond Tutu passed away at the age of 90 at the end of 2021. We look back at his legacy by revisiting his 2010 book Made For Goodness. Even after decades of fighting apartheid and seeing the cruelty people were capable of, he still believed that humans were mostly good at their core. Tutu told NPR's Renee Montagne that he was constantly bowled over by people's willingness to forgive.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Today's interviews are about transporting you to different places. The first is with cousins Tricia Elam Walker and Ekua Holmes who wrote a children's book, Dream Street, about the neighborhood where they grew up in Roxbury, Mass. They told NPR's Scott Simon and producer Samantha Balaban that the characters in the book were inspired by people in their lives. Our next interview is with writer Clint Smith, who traveled to different locations across the country for his book on slavery, How the Word is Passed. He told NPR's Mary Louise Kelly he wanted to talk about places that still exist because slavery wasn't that long ago.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy