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Illinois writer Jean Thompson has a new book of stories out called Do Not Deny Me. It is a collection stories with wit, humor and a fictional primer on how Americans live day to day.

Most anyone who's had a beginning art history class knows the story of how the great painter Vincent van Gogh sliced off part of his left ear during a fit of madness. Now a new book argues that the whole tale isn't true. The story of van Gogh's madness was part of a coverup, the authors say, by none other than van Gogh's friend and fellow artist Paul Gauguin.

Red-headed comedian Kathy Griffin, star of the Bravo reality show My Life on the D-List, says even her glimpses of A-list celebrity status are overshadowed by her D-list realities. And to Griffin, being interviewed on NPR is clearly a D-list gig.

Natasha Williams, a Ukrainian-born cafe owner and former actor, has gone back to her roots: She has started a Stanislavsky-inspired theater company in Lexington, Ky., called the Balagula Theatre.

Reporter Alice Furlaud found a letter from her husband, dated two years before he died. The letter revealed their humble assets, including a list of gold coins stored in a Swiss bank. Furlaud took the trip and rediscovered her past life along the way.

Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson and the Olympians children's books have become so popular that independent bookstores have started running day camps for children based on the series. Just like Percy Jackson, these kids' adventures come right out of Greek mythology.

The Newsweek editor highlights a book and a pair of articles that turn on the effect of particularly unique places on people — from the sensibilities of an NYPD officer to two countries in the Middle East pushed to the brink by their leaders.

Mary Roach likes to tackle the big and scary topics: like death, in her book Stiff, and sex, in her book Bonk. Her latest, Packing For Mars, is about preparing human beings to travel in space.

Daily Beast Editor Tina Brown chats with Steve Inskeep about the best things she has been reading lately. This time, her recommendations focus on women and power, both those with it and those without it.

In Grammy-award winning parodist "Weird Al" Yankovic's new children's book, When I Grow Up, Billy tells his teacher he wants to be a gorilla masseuse. When Yankovic himself was growing up, he wanted to be a writer for Mad magazine, he tells Liane Hansen on Weekend Edition Sunday.