Search results for

Czech-born artist Peter Sis makes a case for the printed page with a gorgeously illustrated retelling of a 12th century Sufi poem. In The Conference of the Birds, Sis crafts a richly inked parable of a flight of birds that speaks to the painful but beautiful human journey toward understanding.

"Before 2009," writes columnist Thomas Frank, "the man in the bread line did not ordinarily weep for the man lounging on his yacht." Frank looks at how the recession gave birth to a conservative populist revolt in his book Pity the Billionaire.

From John Lennon curled around Yoko Ono to a pregnant Demi Moore, photographer Annie Leibovitz has made a career of capturing people. But her latest collection is something very different. In Pilgrimage, Leibovitz focuses her lens on places and objects that have special meaning for her.

It isn't just crafty marketing that draws us to that newest gadget, restaurant or travel destination. According to Winifred Gallagher's latest book, we're biologically predisposed to be attracted to novelty and change.

Our brains are filled with billions of neurons. Neuroscientist Sebastian Seung explains how mapping out the connections between those neurons might be the key to understanding the basis of things like personality, memory, perception, ideas and mental illness.

Our brains are filled with billions of neurons. Neuroscientist Sebastian Seung explains how mapping out the connections between those neurons might be the key to understanding the basis of things like personality, memory, perception, ideas and mental illness.

Amanda Coplin's first novel follows Talmadge, the titular orchardist, who doesn't stray far from his fruit trees — but trouble comes to him in the form of two pregnant teenage runaways. The book, by turns lyrical and gritty, is a glimpse into the massive changes in the American West at the end of the 19th century.

In the author's latest novel, The Devil in Silver, a man is mistakenly committed to a mental hospital where a buffalo-headed monster stalks patients at night. LaValle tells Fresh Air why he picked monsters, about his family history of mental illness and how he had his own brush with psychological problems.

"We've had time to act — and essentially we haven't acted," says science journalist Michael Lemonick. He describes the threats posed by climate change in his new book, Global Weirdness: Severe Storms, Deadly Heat Waves, Relentless Drought, Rising Seas, and the Weather of the Future.

Legendary jazz musician Charlie Parker died 50 years ago Saturday. Poet Joe Pacheco recalls one of Parker's last performances, when the saxophonist known as "Bird" played in Manhattan. The poem is from Pacheco's book The First of the Nuyoricans/Sailing to Sanibel.