NPR's Book of the Day Folgen

Living as an undocumented immigrant means living in the shadows, says Qian Julie Wang. Her memoir Beautiful Country tells the story of her family's life in New York after fleeing China in 1994. Her mother worked menial jobs in terrible conditions. Her father struggled with his status as a man in a country that equated being Asian with weakness. They couldn't even seek out regular medical care for fear of being deported. Wang joins NPR's Scott Simon in today's episode to talk about how those experiences shaped and shamed her, even as she became a Yale Law graduate and successful attorney.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Questioning religion can be a pretty common identity crisis. But what if your faith is based on... yourself? When Kalki is born with blue skin and black blood, he is believed to be the reincarnation of Vishnu. But when he fails to heal a girl brought to him in distress, he questions his divinity, which means questioning everything. In today's episode, SJ Sindu talks to NPR's Scott Simon about how her novel Blue Skinned Gods was an attempt to better understand her own family's urge to believe.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

You're probably at least a little familiar with the WNBA, and even if you never actually seen A League of Their Own, everyone knows there's no crying in baseball. But did you know there was a whole professional women's football league in the 1960's? NPR's A Martinez spoke with Britni de la Cretaz about their book Hail Mary: The Rise and Fall of the National Women's Football League, which they co-authored with fellow sports writer Lyndsey D'Arcangelo. And, disappointingly, but perhaps unsurprisingly, de la Cretaz says it was homophobia and sexism that undermined the league's success.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy