Lynn Neary

The chain restaurant that catered to women helped redefine how Americans eat, according to a new book. For NPR's Lynn Neary, it also defined how she did and didn't fit with the counterculture.

The D.C. public library has hidden books throughout the city in stores, libraries and cafes. They're covered in black dust jackets with labels like FILTHY, TRASHY and PROFANE. Can you find all six?

Organizers have revealed the six authors still in the British literary competition. It's the first time five of them have been in the last round. The prize is 50,000 pounds and often better sales.

During the 20 years he worked for an investment firm, Amor Towles spent a lot of time in fancy hotels. His new novel follows a Russian aristocrat sentenced to house arrest at the Metropol in Moscow.

Best known for her kids' and young adult books, Woodson has written her first adult novel in 20 years. Another Brooklyn is a dreamlike narrative about friendship, memory and dealing with death.

Sophisticated ways of tracking reading habits give publishers hard data that reveals the kinds of books people want to read. But a veteran editor says numbers only go so far in telling the story.

As TV dramas get better and better, publishers are getting into the game with serialized fiction. Some are even referring to what they publish as "episodes" and "seasons" rather than "books."

Three law enforcement officers are dead and at least three more are wounded in Baton Rouge, La. this morning. NPR's Lynn Neary talks to Jesse Hardman of member station WWNO about the latest.

This week, video brought us real people dying in real time. It wasn't in Bangladesh; it wasn't in Baghdad. It was here at home. When violence becomes the norm, how do we not become numb?

Lynn Neary wonders whether the latest "Harry Potter story" (technically the script of a new play) merits the marketing push it's getting.

Emma Cline's debut novel was inspired by the infamous Manson family murders. But Cline says it wasn't the cult that fascinated her — it was the young girls who were so taken by it.

The legendary editor nurtured the likes of Hemingway and Fitzgerald. But it was taming Thomas Wolfe's massive tomes that was perhaps his greatest feat. Now, that struggle has inspired a film.

Straub's new book, Modern Lovers, is a tale of old friendships, secrets and family entanglements set in a part of Brooklyn writers often ignore: leafy, largely residential Ditmas Park.

A woman is suing Starbucks for putting too much ice in her iced coffee. NPR's Lynn Neary wonders if asking the barista for light ice could fix things, then decries the Starbucks' naming conventions.

Jennifer Haigh grew up in small town Pennsylvania, where jobs disappeared when coal mines closed. Her new novel explores the changes that mining — and now fracking — has brought to nearby communities.

Governments have tried to erase the evidence of some squares' troubled pasts, but that doesn't mean they've been forgotten. A new book gathers writers' thoughts about famous squares around the world.

Robert McCloskey was a young artist when he brought a crate of ducks back to his studio apartment. Since then, the plucky Mallard family (Jack, Lack, Mack, et al.) has charmed its way into our hearts.

Authors Sarai Walker and Mona Awad were tired of the way fat characters were — and weren't — portrayed in fiction. Dietland and 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl attack a culture of stigmatization.

"I see the world and then I describe it," says Sara Baume. Her debut novel, Spill Simmer Falter Wither, is a "very atypical love story" between a troubled man and his adopted one-eyed dog.

The movie that was nominated for several Oscars began as a self-published book by Andy Weir. NPR's Lynn Neary looks at how an unknown author's book became a hit audio book and major motion picture.