This week, best-selling author Russell Shorto never thought to write about his own past. He grew up knowing his grandfather and namesake was a small-town mob boss but maintained an unspoken family vow of silence. Then an elderly relative prodded: “You’re a writer―what are you gonna do about the story?” The result is Smalltime: A Story of My Family and the Mob. (more…)
Taking as inspiration his mother’s own Red Cross service, novelist Luis Alberto Urrea has delivered an overlooked story of women’s heroism in World War...
This week, we discuss the new book “Susan, Linda, Nina & Cokie: The Extraordinary Story of the Founding Mothers of NPR” by journalist Lisa...
Frances Mayes has spent thirty years splitting her time between her native United States and adopted home in Tuscany and writing bestselling books, including...