Mai Nguyen’s debut novel centers on the family of Tuyet and Xuan Tran, Vietnamese refugees who settle in Toronto. It simmers with questions about work, class and generational divides.
Original source: https://www.npr.org/2023/07/06/1185136468/review-book-sunshine-nails-mai-nguyen
Shoes and accessories designed by Aurora James sell for hundreds, even thousands, of dollars. In
, James details how hard it was to get here and the imbalanced economics of high fashion.
Original source: https://www.npr.org/2023/07/06/1186176653/aurora-james-brother-vellies-wildflower-15-percent-pledge
NPR’s Scott Simon remembers Ukrainian writer and poet Victoria Amelina, who was among those killed in a Russian strike at a pizza restaurant last month.
Original source: https://www.npr.org/2023/07/08/1186552692/opinion-remembering-ukrainian-poet-victoria-amelina
There are overdue library books. Then there’s
, which was last checked out in Massachusetts in 1904. It finally made it back after being spotted in West Virginia.
Original source: https://www.npr.org/2023/07/08/1186635180/overdue-library-book-119-years
An excellent work of people-first journalism, Donovan X. Ramsey’s book offers a vivid and frank history and highlights how communities tend to save themselves even as they’re being targeted.
Original source: https://www.npr.org/2023/07/11/1186750331/when-crack-was-king-follows-four-people-who-lived-through-the-drug-epidemic
The works have earned Sotomayor $3.7 million since she joined the court in 2009. Her taxpayer-funded staffers have been deeply involved in organizing speaking engagements intended to sell the books.
Original source: https://www.npr.org/2023/07/11/1187005372/sonia-sotomayor-supreme-court-staff-book-sales-signings-memoir
The Czech writer tackled big topics — sex, surveillance, death, totalitarianism — but always with a sense of humor. Blacklisted and banned in the Soviet Union, he left for France in 1975.
Original source: https://www.npr.org/2023/07/12/1151021446/milan-kundera-dies-unbearable-lightness-of-being
Andrew Lipstein achieves the difficult feat of realistically animating a hedge fund manager who talks and moves as real hedge fund managers might, but who is compelling and not overly alienating.
Original source: https://www.npr.org/2023/07/12/1186730199/andrew-lipstein-the-vegan-book-review
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Anne Hull grew up in the rural interior of Central Florida during the 1960s and ’70s. Her memoir evokes a land of perfect citrus, and the cruel costs of its harvest.
Original source: https://www.npr.org/2023/07/12/1186778166/anne-hull-through-the-groves-review-florida-memoir
“We won’t heal until we make sense of the crack epidemic,” Donovan X. Ramsey says. His book,
When Crack Was King,
examines the drug’s destructive path through the Black community.
Original source: https://www.npr.org/2023/07/13/1186778651/crack-cocaine-epidemic-when-crack-was-king-donovan-x-ramsey