Joy Williams and Unique Views of America

Today, we want to bring back an episode from our archives. It’s about a book that has real beach read vibes. There’s a lot of water. It’s a relationship drama. And it’s also a daring story of survival. “Marriage at Sea: A True Story of Love, Obsession and Shipwreck" made it onto ... Show More

If you can’t tell your Eurylochus from your Telemachus, fear not: Your primer on “The Odyssey” is here, just in time for Christopher Nolan’s new film adaptation of the 3,000-year-old epic. Madeline Miller, who reinvented “The Odyssey” in her best-selling novel “Circe,” explains w ... Show More

The United States is celebrating its 250th birthday this summer, giving Americans a chance to reflect on the nation’s past and imagine its future. Who better to help us make sense of this moment than Jill Lepore? The Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, longtime staff writer at The ... Show More

Reading Alexis Wright's Carpentaria and Patrick White's The Vivisector with critic Geordie Williamson - and with words from the writers themselves, as well as other voices and commentators from the ABC Archives 

Idiosyncratic short story writer Diane Williams discusses her new book, “How High? – That High.” 

Following the success of his previous novel All the Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr's latest book is an ambitious epic about the power and immortality of stories. He discusses it all with NPR's Scott Simon here. If you're in the market for a novel written by someone who genuin ... Show More

Poet Franny Choi knows that marginalized communities have been facing apocalypses forever. But in her new book, The World Keeps Ending, and the World Goes On, she uses their survival as a way to look forward. In this episode, she tells NPR's Leila Fadel how understanding that pai ... Show More