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Tory Dent, who wrote poetry about the experience of living with AIDS, died Friday. Poet Adrienne Rich remembers her friend's life and work.

Religious scholar Reza Aslan explains to Robert Siegel why the Muhammad cartoons recently published in several European newspapers are offensive to Muslims. The depiction of Muhammad is considered blasphemous by many in the Muslim world and has prompted vigorous protest.

Host Debbie Elliott talks with author Jeanne Birdsall, the winner of this year's National Book Award for Young People's Literature, about her book, The Penderwicks: A Summer Tale of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits, and a Very Interesting Boy.

In the wake of two hurricanes, the airwaves are filled with voices of people not often heard in the national media. These are the people who inspired poet James Applewhite many years ago to write "Southern Voices," a poem with a new resonance.

Richard McCann's autobiographical novel Mother of Sorrows took 20 years to complete. The author tells Jacki Lyden how the book came to be.

Kristin Henderson, author of While They're at War: The True Story of American Families on the Homefront, talks to Michele Norris about the private sacrifices made by military families.

In her 1990 best-selling book, You Just Don't Understand, linguist Deborah Tannen argued that men and women speak different languages. Now she's taking on the relationship between mothers and daughters.

Scott Simon, host of NPR's Weekend Edition Saturday, talks about his debut novel, Pretty Birds. The story centers on a young Muslim woman who becomes a sniper during the height of the siege of Sarajevo in the early 1990s.

Some Catholics have called for the immediate canonization of Pope John Paul II. But according to the rules, that can't happen for at least five years. Father Richard McBrien, professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame, describes the road to sainthood.

Work aprons, party aprons, Depression-era aprons. They're all part of The Apron Chronicles, a traveling exhibit managed by the Women's Museum in Dallas.

In Shoot the Widow: Adventures of a Biographer in Search of Her Subject, author Meryle Secrest talks about the challenges of writing a biography, from overprotective family members to death threats to growing too close to her subject.

Business journalist Roger Lowenstein talks about his new book, While America Aged, which looks at how corporations and governments came to make pension and health care obligations to workers — and what is happening as the bills come due.

Presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama are both promising the voters change. But will the new president be able to deliver in a partisan, gridlocked Washington where the parties can regularly checkmate one another?

During the past four decades, Paul Theroux has produced more than two dozen works of fiction and half as many widely read travel books. His latest work of fiction, The Elephanta Suite, is composed of three novellas set in modern India.

Think your Thanksgiving is as American as pumpkin pie? Not so fast. Food historian Jack Turner explains to Andrea Seabrook how plants like cloves, cinnamon and nutmeg made their way around the world onto our dinner plates.

Have you ever wondered who invented the dishwasher? Or who was the first person ever to go on a diet? Those answers and more are part of a new book from mental_floss magazine.

Citigroup and Merrill Lynch recently announced that their CEOs were stepping down but neither had an immediate replacement in sight. Succession is not an event but a process that takes place over a number of years, experts say, because of the scale and scope of major corporations.

While working on public relations issues in the Reagan White House, Eric Dezenhall learned how to make bad news go away. Now he's the author of Damage Control: Why Everything You Know about Crisis Management is Wrong.

After her father died at the considerable age of 102, Mary Morris set out to reconnect with his early life along the Mississippi River with a riverboat trip through Mark Twain country.

Charles Frazier, the author of the blockbuster book Cold Mountain, earned an astronomical $8.25 million advance on his second novel. Thirteen Moons hits bookstores on Oct. 3, during a crowded fall season.

Now in Theaters Everywhere: A Celebration of a Certain Kind of Blockbuster is a new book by Kenneth Turan about a type of smart studio movie which, Turan argues, is increasingly under economic threat of extinction.

Two new books shed light on the often misunderstood heritage of an impoverished region rich in culture: The United States of Appalachia and The Encyclopedia of Appalachia.

In his years covering the Middle East for The New York Times, Neil MacFarquhar spent time observing many of the customs. He describes some of them in his new book, The Media Relations Department of Hizbollah Wishes You a Happy Birthday.

A new book says snark is threatening to take over how Americans converse. Snark is a tone of teasing or snideness. David Denby, the author of Snark, discusses about how clever put-downs and cheap shots are coarsening public debate.

Dr. Marcia Angell is the author of The Truth About Drug Companies. Angell, former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, disputes drug firms' claims that prices are high because profits are used for research and development. Hear Angell and NPR's Jennifer Ludden.