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Throughout his career, Edmund Morris repeatedly showed boredom, even disdain, for the traditional biography. In turn, he sometimes injected his books with an artistic flair that got in the way.

Country singer-songwriter Rodney Crowell brings his guitar into the studio and performs songs that relate to his memoir, Chinaberry Sidewalks, about his rough-and-tumble childhood in East Texas.

Ethiopia's government has declared a state of emergency following months of anti-government protests by the Oromo people, who say they are marginalized.

Fred Harvey was the Ray Kroc before McDonald's, the J.W. Marriott before Marriott Hotels. A new book by Stephen Fried looks at how Harvey civilized the West with his railroad restaurants and changed America's eating habits.

In a new Broadway production of Fences, Oscar winner Denzel Washington plays Troy Maxson, a garbage collector and family man whose life's disappointment was hitting his baseball peak before blacks were allowed into the major leagues. The part was created by James Earl Jones — and the play won writer August Wilson the Pulitzer Prize.

The opening chapter of Go Set A Watchman, Lee's first novel in 55 years, is out. Reactions ran from joy to shock — as readers coped with a plot twist and lingering doubts on the timing of its release.

Alaa Al Aswany's new book sets the dynamics of a fallen family and an elitist car club against the tensions of post-World War II Egypt, but a clunky translation and too many plots keep the brakes on.

The former U.S. poet laureate says he can't write poetry any more, but still has some prose in him. In a new book, Essays After Eighty, he considers his art, his beard and his experience growing old.

The aging characters in Kate Walbert's new novel are learning to go with the flow as waters rise and life takes strange turns. Critic Heller McAlpin praises Walbert's ability to capture women's lives.

Curtis White is no enemy of science, but his new book criticizes what he sees as today's overreliance on rigid thinking and social organization, and our unquestioning optimism about technology.

Julian Barnes' slim but powerful new novel chronicles the difficulties composer Dmitri Shostakovich suffered under repressive Soviet regimes, and mourns what is lost when tyrants try to control art.

Juan Felipe Herrera is the child of Mexican migrant farmworkers. He says, "I had a mother [who] sang and told stories and loved poetry, even though she only went to third grade."

Matt Fraction and Christian Ward's splendidly trippy, genderbent retelling of the Odyssey sets the story in space, as warlike Odyssia, "witchjack and wanderer" winds her way home to far Ithicaa.

Cammie O'Reilly lost her mother when she was a baby — so she seeks out maternal support from female inmates. Author Jerry Spinelli says the book was inspired by a real-life story from his hometown.

Evolutionary biologist Menno Schilthuizen's new book is a breezy (sometimes too breezy) account of the ways animals have adapted to city life, and the staggering impact humans have had on evolution.

Prentis Rollins' new graphic novel is set in a near future where the government uses drone-powered mobile invisibility fields to control its prisoners, keeping them out of sight and incommunicado.

Maile Meloy's novel centers on two families whose children go missing during an international vacation. Maureen Corrigan read it in two nights and says it's a "very smart work of literary fiction."

Comic artist Ulli Lust's unique, surreal style proves a bad match for this adaptation of a historical novel about the children of Joseph Goebbels and their last days in Adolf Hitler's bunker.

Zelenskyy made the alarming claim in his nightly video address, adding that he believes the Russians may soon damage the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and blame Ukraine.

Fifty years ago Thursday, the dictator Fulgencio Batista fled Cuba, clearing the way for Fidel Castro and his guerilla movement to assume power. NPR's Jason Beaubien is in Santiago for the anniversary of the "Triumphant Revolution" and talks with Guy Raz about Cubans' perceptions of their country and their role in the 21st century.