Kellogg Public Library

In Francine Prose's new novel, Goldengrove, a sister's sudden death leaves a young girl adrift. Prose is the author of 15 previous novels, including A Changed Man and Blue Angel, as well as the nonfiction book Reading Like a Writer.

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Think the Pilgrims were all straight-laced seriousness and tight buckles? Think again, says author Sarah Vowell. In her new book, The Wordy Shipmates, Vowell explores the lively history of America's ancestors. Just who were those folks living in the "shining city on a hill"?

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These days, Reverend Run and his wife, Justine, are best known for their MTV reality show, Run's House. The couple has written a book together, titled Take Back the Family: A Challenge to America's Parents. They join NPR's Tony Cox.

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To national audience, Michelle Obama is well-known because of her husband's presidential candidacy. But the attorney and businesswoman has an impressive and distinguished career of her own. Liza Mundy, author of Michelle, a new biography of Michelle Obama, writes about the Chicago native's professional aspirations and how they coincided with her Sen. Barack Obama's political journey.

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After 30 years, cartoonist Berkeley Breathed is bidding adieu to his charming, politically astute penguin of Bloom County and Opus. His new project is Pete & Pickles, a children's book about a very sad pig.

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In an effort to reconnect with his Jewish faith, Georgia-native Benyamin Cohen explored the Christianity across the "Bible Belt" of America. He documented his experiences in My Jesus Year: A Rabbi's Son Wanders the Bible Belt in Search of His Own Faith.

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Horace Engdahl, a Nobel Prize official, commented on Wednesday that the United States is "too isolated" and "too insular" to generate literary Nobel laureates. He said Europe remains the "center of the literary world."

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Best-selling author and illustrator David Macaulay takes a head-to-toe trip in The Way We Work: Getting to Know the Amazing Human Body. He says illustrating how we work was so difficult, he almost gave up.

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Radical bombers battle strikebreaking capitalists while Clarence Darrow squares off against the "American Sherlock Holmes" in this very popular history of a trial that mixed murder, politics and celebrity in 1910 Los Angeles.

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In her latest project, poet and wordsmith Nikki Giovanni brings together poetry and hip hop, in an effort to reach young ears. NPR's Tony Cox speaks with Giovanni about the new book, Hip Hop Speaks to Children: A Celebration of Poetry with a Beat.

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Are you experiencing political addiction? Signs include an obsession with the electoral map, overuse of the phrase "game-changer" and a trance-like fixation on Nov. 4. If this could be you, then we have three books to feed your habit.

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In 2000, the muscular, 6-feet-10-inch NBA star was diagnosed with a rare, life-threatening kidney disease. Alonzo Mourning made a full recovery following a transplant. Now, he's written a memoir about the obstacles he had to overcome on the road back to the NBA.

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As she nears the end of her own life, Nobel Laureate Doris Lessing is attempting to make some sense of her beginnings: Her new novel, Alfred And Emily, imagines a better life for her parents — one in which they marry different people.

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