NPR's Book of the Day Folgen

Both our interviews today deal with the pressures we put on ourselves. First, Olympic runner Alexi Pappas on her memoir, Bravey. On the outside, Pappas was living what looked like a great life; she was breaking Greek Olympic records and her movie got a distribution deal. But, she told NPR's Ari Shapiro, she was still deeply sad. Next, an interview from early in the pandemic when women were disproportionately feeling the burden of our new reality. Glennon Doyle, author of Untamed, told former NPR host Lulu Garcia-Navarro that "every woman on earth needs to lower her expectations for herself."Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Poet and author Kwame Alexander was feeling the weight of being Black in America last summer and didn't know how to make sense of his feelings. So, he made sense of them through his book of poetry, Light For The World To See: A Thousand Words On Race And Hope. It's three poems on three historic events: the murder of George Floyd, Colin Kaepernick's protests, and Barack Obama being elected president. Alexander told NPR's Rachel Martin he wrote this as a call for Black people to remember their humanity.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

William Shakespeare had a son, Hamnet, who likely inspired one of his most famous plays and who died when he was 11 years old. Novelist Maggie O'Farrell was disappointed that more people weren't familiar with him, so she set out to fix that with her book, Hamnet. O'Farrell wanted to reimagine Hamnet's life, his death, and William Shakespeare's family life. But, she told NPR's Mary Louise Kelly, she had a much harder time writing this book than she thought she would.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy