NPR's Book of the Day Folgen

Kwame Alexander's new novel aimed at teens, The Door of No Return, focuses on the history of slavery. It follows a boy growing up in Ghana in 1860, and it aims to help readers understand the wholeness of the lives and experiences of Africans before they walked through that "door of no return" – and were shipped to the Americas. In an interview with NPR's Rachel Martin, Alexander talks about how he used poetry to make the heavy subject palatable for children.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

In 2009, Hilary Mantel won the Man Booker Prize for Fiction for her novel Wolf Hall. Mantel died in September, and in this episode we hear former NPR host Liane Hansen's interview with Mantel just after she won the prize. In the novel, Mantel examines the reign of England's King Henry VIII through the life and relationships of his trusted advisor Thomas Cromwell – and the author says it's important not only to look at what happened in the past, but also to consider how it felt.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

The two books in today's episode point up how authors write and empathize with characters that aren't exactly likable. First we hear from Anthony Doerr who spoke to NPR correspondent Arun Rath about his Pulitzer-Prize winning novel All The Light We Cannot See. Doer talks about how we can better understand the moral choices people make by tuning into untold stories. Then, Scott Simon of NPR's Weekend Edition interviews author Yiyun Li about her new novel The Book of Goose. It's a story of two ruthless French girls who write a book that alters their lives.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy