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The cult favorite 1965 novel Dune was a classic of sci-fi literature. But author Leigh Bardugo says that when she was 12, Dune wasn't just an escape — it changed her world. Has a book ever opened your eyes to an alternate reality? Tell us in the comments.

The latest book by former New Yorker editor Robert Gottlieb, Great Expectations: The Sons and Daughters of Charles Dickens, reads more like scintillating gossip about the famous writer and his family than literary scholarship. NPR's Heller McAlpin is fine with that.

The great Sanskrit epic The Birth of Kumara details the heavenly lovemaking of Shiva and Parvati. Author Aatish Taseer tells how reading the fifth-century epic connected him to classical India. What work of literature brought you closer to home? Tell us in the comments.

As Thanksgiving draws near, many of us are thinking about what we're thankful for. Novelist and memoirist Anne Lamott says she is filled with "wonder at the just sheer beauty of creation." She discusses her new book, Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential Prayers.

David Rowell's debut novel puts public and personal timelines alongside each other as he recounts June 8, 1968. That's the day a train made a slow, momentous journey from New York to Washington, D.C., to deliver the body of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy for burial beside his slain brother.

On the eve of Mozart's 251st birthday, The Kitchen Sisters take us to Vienna, to Mozart's Hidden Kitchen: "The Tables of New Crowned Hope." The festival honored the composer's free-thinking philosophy, innovation and radical music.

In his new book, Doug Saunders says there are those who believe immigration and high birth rates will make Muslims a majority in Europe in coming decades — and their hostility to Western values makes them a threat. Saunders tells Fresh Air that such fears are based on inaccurate assertions of fact.

In real life, people have to make choices. But the fictional Ursula Todd gets to live out several realities, all set in 20th century Europe. Reviewer Meg Wolitzer says Kate Atkinson's playfully experimental novel ends up capturing what life is really like.

In some ways, Christine Dumaine Leche's writing class was just like any other — there were backpacks, rough drafts, class discussions. But her classroom was on an air base in Afghanistan, and her students were active soldiers. She's collected their work in a new book called Outside The Wire.

Patricia Volk's new memoir, Shocked, chronicles her complex relationship with her beautiful, exacting mother. She finds a useful contrast to her mother's stifled life in a memoir by avant-garde designer Elsa Schiaparelli. Reviewer Heller McAlpin calls the book a "stylish coming-of-age tale."