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Fourteen-year-old Doug Swieteck has the weight of the world upon him — no friends, an alcoholic father and a brother who has just been injured in Vietnam. But the protagonist of this NPR Backseat Book Club book finds solace in an unlikely place — the pages of Audubon's Birds of America.

Year after year, little by little, cars are guiding drivers, protecting them from their incompetence and distractions, squeezing out more fuel economy and making everyone on the roads safer.

Martel's new book, The High Mountains of Portugal, shares some themes with his 2001 novel, Life of Pi: Both feature animals (in this case, a chimpanzee) and both struggle with questions of faith.

In Cold War Russia, getting your hands on an American rock record was close to impossible. But a few bootleggers found a way to hide their contraband in the last place anyone would think to look.

Irish writer Colm Toibin's novella recounts familiar stories of the New Testament, as seen through the eyes of Jesus' mother. But this isn't the iconic blushing virgin you're used to seeing. Toibin's Mary is modeled after the fierce heroines of Greek tragedies — and she is filled with anger.

Attica Locke was inspired to write her new novel after attending an interracial couple's wedding on a plantation. The Cutting Season tells the story of two murders set a century apart. The past, Locke says, "walks with us still."

In Rahat, a city of Palestinian Bedouin Israelis about 20 miles from the Gaza border, people know loss and fear on all sides of the conflict.

President Trump is downplaying expectations for his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Bill Burns, who was U.S. ambassador to Russia for President George W. Bush, explains which country has more to gain from the meeting.

A campaign manager for President Biden outlines the strategy if there's a repeat of the 2020 election against Donald Trump, and how Democrats plan to win over voters once again.

The jazz legend practiced his saxophone 10 to 15 hours a day before he got his big break, and while he wasn't the most reliable husband, when it came to music, he never wavered. Scholar Stanley Crouch's Kansas City Lightning is the first of a two-volume biography of Parker.