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In need of a good read? Or just want to keep up with the books everyone's talking about? NPR's Book of the Day gives you today's very best writing in a snackable, skimmable, pocket-sized podcast. Whether you're looking to engage with the big questions of our times – or temporarily escape from them – we've got an author who will speak to you, all genres, mood and writing styles included. Catch today's great books in 15 minutes or less.

NPR's Book of the Day

Writer and filmmaker Miranda July says the popular imagination sort of drops off once a woman gets married and has kids. Her new novel All Fours turns that on its head – it's a story about an artist in her 40s who departs from her husband and child on a road trip that takes her to some very unexpected places. In today's episode, July speaks to NPR's Brittany Luse about the interviews she conducted with women going through perimenopause and menopause for this book, and the whisper network with her friends that fueled her protagonist's deep desire for something new. 

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In 'All Fours,' Miranda July tackles love, sex and reinvention in middle age

Sarah Wynn-Williams, a former Meta executive, is now barred from discussing her criticism of the company. But before Meta gained an injunction against their former employee, she spoke with NPR's Steve Inskeep about her new memoir Careless People. The book charts Wynn-Williams' path from onetime Facebook megafan to Meta critic – and characterizes Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg as "careless" leaders comfortable cooperating with authoritarian regimes. In today's episode, Wynn-Williams and Inskeep discuss Meta's negotiations with China over censorship tools, Zuckerberg's relationship to President Trump, and alleged misconduct by Wynn-Williams' former boss, Joel Kaplan.

Editor's Note: Meta is a financial supporter of NPR. 

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A former Meta executive characterizes company leadership as "careless" in new memoir

NPR reporter Emily Feng lived in, and reported from, Beijing for years. But in 2022, the Chinese government told Feng, who was born in the United States to Chinese parents, that she couldn't return to the country. The experience prompted her to ask: What does it mean to be Chinese under Xi Jinping's government? Her new book Let Only Red Flowers Bloom explores this question through the lens of individuals who don't fit the government's ideal. In today's episode, Feng joins NPR's Ailsa Chang for a conversation about one of the central characters in the book, the way the Chinese government connects religion and ethnicity, and the personal impact of identity politics.

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A new book from Emily Feng asks what it means to be Chinese in Xi Jinping's China

Jay, the 17-year-old at the heart of Daniel Kraus' novel Whalefall, has an hour of oxygen left on his tank. He's been diving in the ocean off the coast of Monterey, California trying to recover a skeleton — but his mission is complicated when he's swallowed whole by a sperm whale. In today's episode, Kraus speaks with NPR's Ayesha Rascoe about how a book that's so enmeshed in death also reveals quite a lot about life, and how he conceptualized the pacing of his chapters to emphasize Jay's race against time. 

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'Whalefall' by Daniel Kraus is a thriller about diving, loss and new beginnings

The actress Gillian Anderson plays a sex therapist on Netflix's Sex Education. Now, in her off-screen life, Anderson has taken on a similar role: gathering the sexual fantasies of women from around the world. The result, Want, is an edited collection of anonymous submissions exploring women's intimate desires and the spectrum of female sexuality. In today's episode, Anderson speaks with NPR's Mary Louise Kelly about the 1970s book that inspired the project, how the changing media landscape has influenced how women think about sex and the difficulty of asking for what we really want.

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In the new book 'Want,' Gillian Anderson collects other women's sexual fantasies

In today's episode, two new nonfiction books take on big themes: cynicism and freedom. In his new book, Hope for Cynics, Stanford psychology professor Jamil Zaki argues that cynicism is unhealthy not only for individuals, but also for communities and even entire nations. He speaks with Here & Now's Deepa Fernandes about why Americans have grown more cynical over the last 50 years and how a close friend inspired Zaki to move towards "hopeful skepticism." Then, Yale historian Timothy Snyder joins NPR's Scott Simon from Ukraine to talk about how the American definition of freedom can be too narrow. They also discuss how Snyder's thinking on freedom has been shaped by his time in Ukraine.

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'Hope for Cynics' and 'On Freedom' ask big-picture questions about how we live

Tensions are running high for married couple Keru and Nate, who decide to rent a house in Cape Cod, sharing it with each set of parents at different points of a month-long trip. Their vacation seems to have stoked the fires of family dysfunction, eventually pushing Keru to a breaking point. Author Weike Wang believes in putting one's characters through trial by fire, which she does quite literally in her latest novel, Rental House. In today's episode, Wang speaks with NPR's Scott Simon about sometimes-frustrating family life, coexistence, and obstacles for characters.

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There is such a thing as too much quality time in Weike Wang's 'Rental House'

Colonization and the Wampanoag Story is a 2023 history book for middle school readers about the tribe's first encounters with English settlers. In the early 17th century, European contact set off years of destruction for the Wampanoag Nation, including a disease that killed an estimated two-thirds of the population. Earlier this year, the nonfiction work was recategorized as fiction at a library in Montgomery, Texas, following complaints by an anonymous cardholder. But last month, a judge ruled that the book must be returned to the library's nonfiction section. In today's episode, Linda Coombs, Wampanoag historian and author, joins Here & Now's Robin Young to speak about how the recategorization of her book fits into the history of her tribe's erasure.

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Author of Wampanoag history discussed her children's book and erasure

Renowned poet and professor Nikki Giovanni died earlier this week at age 81, following a third cancer diagnosis. She was a prolific writer and leader in the Black Arts Movement, publishing poetry collections such as Black Feeling Black Talk and Those Who Ride the Night Winds. She also taught English at Virginia Tech. In today's episode, we revisit a 2013 conversation between Giovanni and NPR's Michel Martin that followed the release of Chasing Utopia, which featured a combination of essays and poetry. Giovanni and Martin discussed the poet's relationship to her late mother, the pleasure of old age, and the trauma of the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting.

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Remembering Nikki Giovanni, poet and icon of the Black Arts Movement

The World With Its Mouth Open is a book of short stories from journalist-turned-author Zahid Rafiq. The collection showcases the precarious but ordinary lives of people in modern day Kashmir, a site of ongoing geopolitical conflict. In Rafiq's stories, a work crew makes a disturbing discovery at a construction site, a pregnant woman searches for fresh fish, and a shopkeeper has an unexpected encounter with a mannequin. In today's episode, Rafiq tells NPR's Eric Deggans about his interest in writing stories without knowing the ending, and his characters' ability to build a future on the foundation of a difficult past.

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In Zahid Rafiq's debut short story collection, the future of Kashmir is uncertain

For poet Camille Dungy, environmental justice, community interdependence and political engagement go hand in hand. She explores those relationships in her book, Soil: The Story of a Black Mother's Garden. In it, she details how her experience trying to diversify the species growing in her yard, in a predominantly white town in Colorado, reflects larger themes of how we talk about land and race in the U.S. In today's episode, she tells NPR's Melissa Block about the journey that gardening put her on, and what it's revealed about who gets to write about the environment.

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In 'Soil,' Camille Dungy weaves together gardening, race and motherhood

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