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NPR's Karen Grigsby Bates profiles novelist Susan Straight, who is putting her hometown of Riverside, Calif., on the literary map. Straight herself is white, but she weaves the black, working-class voices of Riverside into her work.

When Akash Kapur returned to India after more than a decade of living in the United States, he returned to a place he hardly recognized. He chronicles some of those changes in his book, India Becoming: A Portrait of Life in Modern India.

In 1857, John Brown liberates 12-year-old Henry from his master. There's only one problem: Brown is so wrapped up in his freedom mission, he thinks Henry is a girl. James McBride delivers a portrait of Brown and his friend Frederick Douglass as Henry sees them.

Japanese grilled cuisine packs a "one-two punch," says cookbook co-author Harris Salat. He tells NPR's Melissa Block that the techniques emphasize food's natural flavors and focuse on simplicity, while sweet and sour tastes duel for dominance.

George Packer's The Unwinding explores the social and economic upheavals that have transformed the U.S. over the past 30 years. In a nuanced work of literary journalism, colorful characters from across the class divide tell their own stories of a social contract in tatters.

In Drinking with Men, Rosie Schaap chronicles the taverns she has called her own and the friends she has met along the way. It's a wonderfully funny and openhearted book from a generous, charismatic writer.

Author Rosie Schaap's new memoir, Drinking With Men, chronicles her life in bars. Schaap writes the 'Drink' column for The New York Times Magazine, and she says goes to bars not for the alcohol but for the sense of community she finds there.

Everything you wanted to know about bug sex (but didn't bother to ask) is explained in a new book. Insect expert Marlene Zuk describes how ants learn, why some crickets don't chirp and how various bugs mate in Sex on Six Legs: Lessons on Life, Love and Language from the Insect World.

She's among the last living beboppers, one of the first singers on Blue Note and a pioneer of voice and bass. The legendary Sheila Jordan joins Christian McBride for a career-spanning conversation.

Critic David Bianculli remembers watching the original news coverage of Kennedy's assassination — four days of unprecedented television — when he was 10 years old.