NPR's Book of the Day

New books by a psychoanalyst and a priest have something in common: They draw on the experience of holding other people’s stories. Stephen Grosz says his book, Love’s Labor, is a collection of “hard-won truths” he’s arrived at through sessions with his patients. In today’s episode, he speaks with NPR’s Ayesha Rascoe about his observations on love, work and relationships. Then, Father James Martin joins NPR’s Scott Detrow for a conversation about Work in Progress. They discuss the litany of odd jobs Martin held before becoming a priest – and what ultimately led him to the church.

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Reshona Landfair met R. Kelly when she was a pre-teen in 1996. Starstruck, Landfair says she fell victim to his grooming tactics, followed by years of sexual, physical and emotional abuse.  A video of Kelly abusing Landfair eventually became public – and helped lead to Kelly’s conviction. Now, Landfair tells her story for the first time in her memoir Who’s Watching Shorty? In today’s episode, she tells NPR’s Juana Summers about being “kept” by Kelly, the way the public treats young Black women who survive abuse, and what she wants the world to know about her today.

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There are many ways that a home renovation project can become a nightmare for all involved. But in The Renovation, narrator Dilara’s remodeling woes aren’t strictly financial or aesthetic—they’re absurdly surreal. When she finds her bathroom transformed into an armed Turkish prison cell, Dilara and her family must reckon with fragments of their past, present and future, all while fighting against the pace of time itself. In today’s episode, author Kenan Orhan joins NPR’s Scott Simon to discuss his debut novel, and how the concept of “prison” is a metaphor in far more ways than one.

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Jung Chang’s memoir Wild Swans, published in 1991, told the story of three generations of women in her family as they survived upheaval in 20th-century China. Now, Chang picks up her family’s story in Fly, Wild Swans, which she was moved to write as her mother’s health failed. In today’s episode, Chang talks with Here & Now’s Scott Tong about her inability to return to China, the biography of Mao she co-authored with her husband, and the Xi era.

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The new novel Clutch follows five women who have known each other since college as they navigate the challenges of midlife. Author Emily Nemens recently told NPR’s Juana Summers that she wanted to tell this story through the group chat, which Nemens calls “the vernacular of now.” In today’s episode, they also discuss negligence in relationships, the novel’s head-on approach to abortion rights, and how writing Clutch impacted Nemens’ own friendships.

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