Celeste Ng – author of titles like Everything I Never Told You and Little Fires Everywhere – says she begins her writing process by envisioning an image, then investigating something she doesn’t understand. Her new novel Our Missing Hearts is set in a dystopian near-future where xenophobia and state oppression are norms. She joined Here & Now’s Robin Young in May for a conversation at the WBUR festival in Boston. They spoke about Ng’s childhood in her hometown near Pittsburgh, Pa. and how she incorporates real-life experiences of anti-Asian discrimination in her books.

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In two new novels, characters with glamorous lives have their routines disrupted by shocking news. The Shampoo Effect is a story about an extremely close friend group living in a small seaside town. In today’s episode, author Jenny Jackson speaks with All Things Considered’s Juana Summers about how her characters’ tight-knit dynamic is disrupted by an outsider and a surprise pregnancy. Then, in The Revelation of Dionne Daphne, an ex-boyfriend pops up with news that stirs up past traumas. Author and TV producer Mara Brock Akil spoke with Morning Edition’s Michel Martin about writing her debut novel.

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Why are we obsessed with the ancient world, even the most ordinary parts of it? Mary Beard tackles that question in her new book Talking Classics: The Shock of the Old. Her personal interest in antiquity began with a 4,000 year-old piece of bread displayed at the British Museum. Now, she’s an academic who has spent her career studying ancient Greece and Rome. In today’s episode, Beard chats with NPR’s Scott Simon about how the Greeks and Romans were “brutal” but also "unfailingly interesting" – and how contemporary culture replicates aspects of the classical world.

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In 2008, artist and activist Ai Weiwei clashed with the Chinese government over its response to the deadly Sichuan earthquake. The government had censored information about the death toll, so Ai Weiwei launched a citizen’s investigation, knocking on doors and visiting villages to learn the names of the thousands of children who died. More recently, the artist has also become critical of political censorship in the United States. In today’s episode, he joins Here & Now’s Scott Tong for a conversation about his new book On Censorship, a critique of censorship under both democratic and authoritarian governments.

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Former Vice President Mike Pence is out with a new book that includes critiques of the second Trump administration and the populist right. What Conservatives Believe, Pence says, was inspired in part by Barry Goldwater’s 1960 manifesto The Conscience of a Conservative, which helped define modern conservatism. In today’s episode, Pence speaks with Morning Edition’s Steve Inskeep about political favoritism of companies, civil rights, and returning to the country’s “first principles.”

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Filmmaker Jonathan Jakubowicz says he turned to fiction because he could no longer make movies in Venezuela after being exiled. In 2016, he published the blockbuster hit The Adventures of Juan Planchard, a novel about a deeply flawed anti-hero who gets involved with a corrupt government regime. Jakubowicz says he wanted to show the reality of life under the late Venezuelan president, Hugo Chávez. In today’s episode, the author joins NPR’s Scott Detrow for a conversation about the book, which has just been translated into English.

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As we continue to celebrate the 250th birthday of the U.S., we’re revisiting author interviews on important books about American history. Today’s episode features two novels that fictionalize the Jim Crow South. Author Tayari Jones spoke with Weekend Edition’s Ayesha Rascoe about Kin, which follows two friends growing up in Honeysuckle, La. who must navigate the constraints on Black women in the 1960s. And Margaret Verble chatted with All Things Considered’s Ari Shapiro about When Two Feathers Fell from the Sky, the story of a Cherokee woman working as a horse-diver at a Nashville, Tenn. zoo.

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As we continue to celebrate the 250th birthday of the U.S., we’re revisiting author interviews on important books about American history. In Eddie Glaude’s new book, the Princeton professor says the United States has a “double consciousness.” Glaude expands on a concept from W.E.B. Du Bois, arguing the country imagines itself at once as a beacon of freedom and as a white republic. In today’s episode, Glaude joins Here & Now’s Scott Tong for a conversation about America, U.S.A., which traces that contradiction as it has bubbled up across the country’s milestone birthdays.

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As we continue to celebrate the 250th birthday of the U.S., we’re revisiting author interviews on important books about American history. In today’s episode, author and journalist Rick Atkinson speaks with Weekend Edition's Scott Simon about his book The British Are Coming. They discuss Atkinson’s portrait of George Washington, whether the American Revolution was motivated by freedom or economic incentives and how “the nation was born disputatiously.”

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As we continue to celebrate the 250th birthday of the U.S., we’re revisiting author interviews on important books about American history. Bob Crawford of the Avett Brothers has a second career as a writer. In today’s episode, he talks with Morning Edition’s Steve Inskeep about his book, America’s Founding Son, a biography of one of the less-distinguished presidents in U.S. history: John Quincy Adams. Adams was a Washington insider who was swept out of office by a populist wave in 1829. But Crawford argues Adams had an influential post-presidency career in Congress as an advocate against slavery.

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As we continue to celebrate the 250th birthday of the U.S., we’re revisiting author interviews on important books that speak to American history. In today’s episode, journalist Norah O’Donnell joins NPR’s Mary Louise Kelly to discuss We the Women, written in collaboration with Kate Andersen Brower. O’Donnell tells Kelly about lesser-known female heroes, like the woman who printed the Declaration of Independence and a female soldier who fought in the American Revolution.

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