NPR's Book of the Day

Summer can be a great time to catch up on reading. If you’re looking for recommendations, the NPR Books team is out with a list of some of our staff’s favorite reads of 2026 so far. In today’s episode, NPR’s Elissa Nadworny and Book of the Day producer Chloee Weiner discuss some of their favorite fiction and nonfiction picks from the list, including The Missed Connection by Tia Williams, The Shampoo Effect by Jenny Jackson and In Trees: An Exploration by Robert Moor.

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Over 50 years, Judy Blume wrote an incomparable set of books for young readers, including Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret, Deenie, Tiger Eyes, Tales Of A Fourth Grade Nothing and Blubber. But she doesn't write books anymore. Scott Simon spoke with Blume at the Santa Fe International Literary Festival in May, where they reflected on her life and career. In today’s episode, they speak about how Blume traded felt art pieces for a typewriter, her new career as a bookstore owner and why Margaret will always be 12.

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Ophir led an unremarkable life until her best friend pulled her into the scam. After 10 years on the run from the Singapore police, she’s assumed new identities, losing sight of herself along the way. She decides to tell her story anonymously through a confessional podcast, but longs to be acknowledged for who she really is. In today’s episode, author Yu-Mei Balasingamchow joins Weekend Edition’s Ayesha Rascoe to discuss her debut novel Names Have Been Changed. They talk about the novel's exploration of diaspora, the "Singlish" vernacular and what Balasingamchow hopes readers will learn about Singapore.

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A new book argues that Elon Musk has an influence in the 21st century similar to what Henry Ford had in the 20th. He's not just a businessman, but the architect and proponent of a world view. Historian Quinn Slobodian and tech writer Ben Tarnoff make this argument in a new book called Muskism: A Guide for the Perplexed. In today’s episode, Slobodian speaks with Morning Edition’s Michel Martin about the parallels between Muskism and Fordism, Musk’s upbringing in South Africa under apartheid and the metamorphosis of his politics.

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In Tom Perrotta’s new novel, a successful writer named Jimmy Perrini is invited to return to his hometown in suburban New Jersey. The invitation takes him back to a difficult summer when he was in eighth grade and had just lost his mother to cancer. Ghost Town revisits that 1970s summer, one colored by strip malls, troublemakers, the Vietnam War, an Ouija board, and racial tensions in Perrini’s white, working-class town. In today’s episode, Perrotta speaks with Here & Now’s Robin Young about the bygone era of his own childhood.

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