Author Interviews NPR interviews with top authors and the NPR Book Tour, a weekly feature and podcast where leading authors read and discuss their writing. Subscribe to the RSS feed.
Author Interviews
NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with Salman Rushdie (April 8, 2024). Nickolai Hammar/NPR hide caption
What happened when the threat of danger became Salman Rushdie's reality?
In Alua Arthur's 2023 TED Talk, she said her ideal death would happen at sunset. Yeofi Andoh/HarperCollins hide caption
Death doula says life is more meaningful if you 'get real' about the end
Salman Rushdie says writing Knife allowed him to change his relationship to the attack. "Instead of just being the person who got stabbed, I now see myself as the person who wrote a book about getting stabbed," he says. Rachel Eliza Griffiths/Penguin Random House hide caption
Two nights before the attack, Salman Rushdie dreamed he was stabbed onstage
Doris Kearns Goodwin and Dick Goodwin were married in 1975. Marc Peloquin, courtesy of the author. hide caption
An American hauls in a HA-19 Japanese submarine following the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. Submarine warfare would prove crucial during WWII. Penguin Random House hide caption
Seizures, broken spines and vomiting: Scientific testing that helped facilitate D-Day
Amanda Montell hosts the podcast Sounds Like a Cult. She's also the author of Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism. Kaitlyn Mikayla/Simon & Schuster hide caption
'Magical Overthinking' author says information overload can stoke irrational thoughts
Chilean author Isabel Allende poses for a photograph in Madrid on June 5, 2017. Francisco Seco/AP hide caption
Science writer David Baron witnesses his first total solar eclipse in Aruba, 1998. He says seeing one is "like you've left the solar system and are looking back from some other world." Paul Myers hide caption
'Women Behind the Wheel' explains how cars became a gendered technology
Catherine Coldstream spent 12 years in a Carmelite monastery. Her new memoir is Cloistered. Keiko Ikeuchi /MacMillan hide caption
A former nun explains why she ran away from her 'Cloistered' life
The cover of Vinson Cunninham's Great Expectations. Headshot by Arielle Gray/Penguin Random House hide caption
Christine Blasey Ford speaks during a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sept. 27, 2018, on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. Michael Reynolds/AP hide caption
Shohini Ghose is the author of the 2023 book Her Space, Her Time: How Trailblazing Women Scientists Decoded the Hidden Universe. Throughout the book, Ghose highlights the stories of women who have transformed physics and astronomy. Courtesy of MIT Press hide caption
This Women's History Month, how physics connects two Bengali women born decades apart
A store in Monrovia, Liberia, advertises Coca-Cola. The photo is from circa 1947. Alberts/Alberts/Three Lions via Getty Images hide caption
Left: Former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden in 2020, Right: Former President Barack Obama Photo by Brendan Smialowski and JIM WATSON / AFP. ; by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images hide caption
The déjà vu election; plus, losing faith in politics in "Great Expectations"
Author Percival Everett photographed in Pasadena, Calif., on Oct. 28, 2022. G L Askew II for The Washington Post via Getty Images hide caption
Percival Everett gives Mark Twain's classic story about Huck a new voice in 'James'
Kate Manne Simon Wheeler/Simon Wheeler for Cornell University hide caption
Rod Nordland looks at the Istanbul old city from Galata Tower on Nov. 20, 2016. Nordland was diagnosed with glioblastoma, a terminal brain cancer, in 2019. Yasin Akgul/AFP via Getty Images hide caption
After years in conflict zones, a war reporter reckons with a deadly cancer diagnosis
A farmer works at an avocado plantation at the Los Cerritos avocado group ranch in Ciudad Guzman, state of Jalisco, Mexico. Ulises Ruiz/AFP via Getty Images hide caption
This data scientist has a plan for how to feed the world sustainably
Cognitive neuroscientist Charan Ranganath says the human brain isn't programmed to remember everything. Rather, it's designed to "carry what we need and to deploy it rapidly when we need it." Bulat Silvia/iStock / Getty Images Plus hide caption
When is forgetting normal — and when is it worrisome? A neuroscientist weighs in
Lucy Sante, shown here in January 2024, says, "I am lucky to have survived my own repression. I think a lot of people in my position have not." Roy Rochlin/Getty Images for The Guardian hide caption
A gender-swapping photo app helped Lucy Sante come out as trans at age 67
Jada Pinkett Smith's creative life. Matt Winkelmeyer/Paul Hawthorne/Getty Images hide caption