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The Grammy-nominated People Take Warning! collects historical songs of murder and disaster during a fertile era for blues and country music: 1913-38. With its cautionary title against the looming industrial age, these musicians took the sensationalism of calamity to song.

The author of Origins: How the Nine Months Before Birth Shape the Rest of Our Lives says her research into fetal origins helped her see that pregnancy isn't just about waiting for birth — it's an opportunity to improve the health and well-being of the next generation.

Jerusalem has many identities — some real, some imagined. It's known as "the city of peace," but author James Carroll identifies it as the "home base of religious violence." In his new book Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Carroll traces the history of this holy city and how it has shaped the modern world.

Pope Francis is popular, both among Catholics and more generally. "You don't need to agree" with the pope's words, says NPR's Scott Simon, "to feel his open heart."

The band describes its music as "globalized urban mash-ups," with brass bands, wedding organs and a rooster's crow all finding a place in its recordings. Percussionist Tamir Muskat traces Balkan Beat Box's inspiration to a childhood that amounted to musical potpourri.

Forget the Steven Spielberg fish tale. Author Lizzie Skurnick says she'll take Peter Benchley's salty novel — and its swearing sailors — over its cinematic adaptation any day.

Sherrod Brown is the first Democrat elected to the U.S. Senate from Ohio since 1992. Brown says voters responded to Democratic promises to help a struggling middle class.

John McGahern struggled for 10 years to write the novel Amongst Women. Fellow Irish author Colm Toibin says it was worth the wait: The pacing of the novel is masterly, he says, and its rhythms are filled with hidden emotion.

Essayist Jake Halpern may be a 33-year-old man with a wife, kids and a job at Yale, but that doesn't mean he's no fun and games. When it comes to zombies, Halpern knows you can't take the living dead lightly — and that's why he's endorsing the ultimate zombie survival guide.

By the time Bill Clegg reached his mid-30s, he had checked all the boxes that would allow him to be defined as a success. But there was something else: Bill Clegg was a crack addict. His new book, Portrait of an Addict as a Young Man, tells the story of an addiction that almost cost him everything.