Amanda Gorman became the youngest inaugural poet in U.S. history when she performed at President Joe Biden's inauguration in 2021. Her poetry often deals with topics like gender, race and politics. She continues to explore these themes in a new picture book Girls on the Rise, which is a poem illustrated by Loveis Wise. In today's episode, Gorman speaks with NPR's Eric Deggans about drawing inspiration from the testimony of Christine Blasey Ford, the importance of creating a welcoming dialogue with children, and the mantra she recites before each performance.

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Brooke Shields started in Hollywood at just 11-years-old, starring in films like Pretty Baby and The Blue Lagoon. From that young age, the actress and model was sexualized on and off screen – and decades later, she's out with a memoir that reflects on that public scrutiny. In Brooke Shields Is Not Allowed To Get Old, Shields – now 59 – writes about her experience with age-related bias in the industry. In today's episode, she speaks with NPR's Leila Fadel about her refusal to feel invisible as she ages, how sweetness can be a liability, and a medical procedure that was performed without her consent.

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Parks and Recreation changed the trajectory of actor Jim O'Heir's career. He landed a small part as Jerry Gergich on the NBC sitcom, ultimately becoming a series regular. Now, 10 years after the show wrapped, O'Heir is out with a memoir, Welcome to Pawnee. In today's episode, he speaks with NPR's Juana Summers about the moment the character clicked for him, the "Parks" family group text, and whether the series could work today.

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A new book from writer, BBC broadcaster and cellist Kate Kennedy tackles the stories of four cellists connected by a mutual musical obsession. Cello: A Journey Through Silence to Sound focuses on musicians like Lise Cristiani, the first female professional cello soloist, and Pál Hermann, a Jewish-Hungarian cellist captured by the Gestapo during World War II. In today's episode, Kennedy speaks with NPR's Daniel Estrin – also a cellist – about these musicians' histories and her own complicated relationship with her instrument.

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About 10 years ago, author Lily Tuck was reading obituaries in The New York Times when she came across photos of Czesława Kwoka, a young prisoner at Auschwitz concentration camp. Tuck didn't know much about Kwoka besides her name and age, but decided to try to write about her. The result is her new novel, The Rest Is Memory, which imagines Kwoka's life at Auschwitz. In today's episode, Tuck speaks with NPR's Scott Simon about how she approaches narrating a story through Kwoka's eyes, the careful attention she pays to language, and the Polish people who lost their lives in the Holocaust.

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Author Mark Lilla is professor of humanities at Columbia University specializing in intellectual history. His new book, Ignorance and Bliss: On Wanting Not to Know, examines the tendencies for willful ignorance in human nature and the correlations of those tendencies to education castes. In today's episode, Lilla speaks to NPR's Asma Khalid about curiosity and the role social media plays in choosing to engage with information and facts.

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Two novels explore the way that violence and loss can ripple across a village, town – or even entire countries. First, in Karina Sainz Borgo's No Place to Bury the Dead, a plague that causes amnesia runs rampant across an unnamed Latin American country. One mother's flight brings her to a border-town cemetery that operates on disputed land. In today's episode, Borgo joins NPR's Elissa Nadworny for a conversation that touches on the importance of death rituals, the myth of Antigone, and a real-life cemetery that exists along the border between Venezuela and Colombia. Then, Tana French has described her novels The Searcher and its sequel, The Hunter, as her take on the American Western. The novels follow Cal Hooper, a retired Chicago police officer who moves to rural Ireland. In The Hunter, the life Cal has built in Ardnakelty is complicated by an unexpected arrival. In today's episode, French speaks with Here & Now's Chris Bentley about her interest in writing from an outsider's perspective, the tension between blood and chosen family, and the particular experience of life in a small town.

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We've moved past the shortest day of the year – Dec. 21 – and, now, the days are getting longer. For more than 40 years, people have read and performed Susan Cooper's poem "The Shortest Day" to commemorate the winter solstice. In 2019, that poem was turned into a children's book, illustrated by Carson Ellis. In their collaboration, the two hoped to convey a story about light's triumph over darkness year after year. In today's episode, Cooper and Ellis join NPR's Scott Simon for a conversation about how the project came together, including the inspiration they took from their communication via letters – and from Pieter Brugel's paintings.

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Small Things Like These is a novella by Claire Keegan that centers around Bill Furlong, an Irish coal merchant who discovers exploitation at a local convent. The story is based on the real-life history of the Magdalene Laundries, workhouses where Irish girls and women were forced into unpaid labor. Keegan's book, originally published in 2021, was adapted to film in the fall of 2024. In today's episode, we revisit a conversation between Keegan and Here & Now's Deborah Becker. They discuss the author's interest in the novella form and why she chose to write a women-centered story with a male protagonist.

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Twenty-five years into the new millennium, Y2K aesthetics and millennial nostalgia are still alive and well in Colette Shade's new book, Y2K: How the 2000s Became Everything (Essays on the Future That Never Was), where she examines the impact of the era on everything from pop culture to politics. In today's episode, Shade talks with NPR's Andrew Limbong about the economic consequences of the era and some of the 2000s cultural artifacts that are still around today.

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