Search results for

Kelly Oxford went from being a housewife and mother of three in Calgary to Internet fame. She reveals the secret to success in a new book, Everything Is Perfect When You're a Liar — but her real story may be just as unbelievable.

Mario Puzo isn't known for his strong female characters — but if you've read his pre-Godfather work, The Fortunate Pilgrim, you might think otherwise. Author Zoe Ferraris recommends this book, which is based on Puzo's own mother. Do you have a favorite literary matriarch? Tell us in the comments.

Author Philip Kerr's latest novel takes his wartime German gumshoe Bernie Gunther from Berlin to Prague at the behest of notorious SS boss Reynhard Heydrich. Gunther must solve an Agatha Christie-style country house murder mystery in which the suspects are all mass murderers already.

In 2013, Alie was having one of the hardest years of her life. Then she got a Facebook message from a generous stranger.

In his new book about photography, Believing Is Seeing, documentary filmmaker Errol Morris talks about what you don't see in photographs and the importance of what lies outside the frame. He says photographers have been posing photos as long as they've been taking them.

When lingerie designer Imogene Gilfeather hears that Wally Yez is the perfect guy, her response is telling: "Perfect ... is not my type." Comedy writer Patricia Marx tracks the beautiful — and absurd — relationship that follows in her new novel, Starting from Happy.

In his novel Anatomy of a Disappearance, Hisham Matar tells the tale of a father kidnapped — much like his own. Matar's father, a vocal opponent of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, disappeared 20 years ago. No one knows if he is dead or alive. "Living in hope is a really terrible thing," Matar says.

Author Douglas Perry's new book, Eliot Ness: The Rise and Fall of an American Hero, paints a portrait of the legendary lawman as a flawed but genuinely good guy who floundered when away from the excitement of police work. Ness "helped invent the modern police force," Perry says, but couldn't stop drinking and cheating on his wives.

In Marcel Theroux's Strange Bodies, dead people inhabit new bodies and immortality isn't all it's cracked up to be. Theroux tells NPR's Scott Simon, "I think that everyone who loves books has experienced the feeling of being taken over by another mind."

Donna Tartt's new novel The Goldfinch follows a motherless boy and a priceless painting in the aftermath of a terror attack. It's only her third novel in 21 years. Tartt tells NPR's Scott Simon that she started thinking about art, money and fate after stumbling across an art exhibition in a Las Vegas casino.