The Thread

The NPR host’s new biography of Jessie and John Fremont details why one of America’s original power couples is still relevant to national politics today.

Journalist Conor Dougherty doesn't traffic radical ideas in “Golden Gates,” but tells the story of housing in all its complexity, acknowledging that imperfect solutions are often the only solutions.

Vashti Harrison's new picture book showcases black leaders throughout American history — but not just the big names. She also focuses on artists, athletes and scientists who may be less well-known.

Amber Sparks' new story collection is full of vivid language, compelling imagery, sharp wit and tenderness; many of the pieces also share a thread of anger in their treatment of the patriarchy.

Diversity in publishing has been an industry issue for years. But the current controversy over Jeanine Cummins' novel “American Dirt" has intensified the debate. Flatiron Books admits it was caught off guard by the objections of Mexican American writers to Cummins' story of a mother and child fleeing to the U.S. border.

Book author Andrea Freeman discusses the history of breastfeeding among black women, and why media portrayals of black moms matter.

Jenny Offill's darkly funny, urgent new novel follows a librarian who gets involved in doomsday prepping. It's a perfect portrait of our age of rising anxiety over climate change and

People have been telling stories about pandemics for thousands of years — once, they were tales of divine retribution, but today they're often rooted in current events like the coronavirus outbreak.

When Pollan decided to write about caffeine, he gave it up — cold turkey. "I just couldn't focus," he says. "I was irritable. I lost confidence." Caffeine reshapes the brain in surprising ways.

Tola Rotimi Abraham's wrenching novel follows a four young children in Lagos, Nigeria, whose comfortable life is blown apart when their mother loses her job, and their father abandons them.