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White House reporter and columnist Helen Thomas has covered every president since John F. Kennedy. Thomas talks about her 60-year career in journalism, and offers presidents advice in her new book, Listen Up, Mr. President.

In his new book, The Stuff of Thought, psychologist Steven Pinker sorts through some of the paradoxes of profanity. He points out that in a society that prides itself on free speech, certain words pertaining to sex and excretion remain off-limits.

In 2004, Wangari Maathai became the first African woman and the first environmentalist to win the Nobel Peace Prize. Maathai talks about her memoir, Unbowed, and why she believes protecting the environment has everything to do with world peace.

Author and NPR sports show host Bill Littlefield reminds his readers to remain calm while they watch and play sports. His new book is a collection of essays, articles and poems about everything from Major League Baseball, to women's soccer, to Alistair Cooke's love of games.

Life for the character Frannie in Jacqueline Woodson's new novel, Feathers, takes a bit of a turn when a new kid who looks like a white Jesus joins her predominately black sixth-grade class.

Eating disorders have long been considered more common among women than men, but a new study from Harvard shows that a number of men suffer from eating issues, as well. We examine how eating disorders affect men, and why men are less likely to seek help.

Author Jane Schoenberg teamed with her musician husband Steven to create a book and CD aimed at teaching children about their bodies. My Bodyworks offers a brief anatomical overview, and 12 songs.

In The House At The End Of The Road, W. Ralph Eubanks tells the story of his white grandfather, Jim, and black grandmother, Edna. Jim and Edna Richardson raised a biracial family in spite of living in Jim Crow, rural Alabama.

NPR religion correspondent Barbara Bradley Hagerty spent a year exploring the emerging science of spirituality for her book, Fingerprints of God. She talks with Weekend Edition Sunday host Liane Hansen about what she discovered while writing the book.

These days some shoppers are looking at more than the price of their groceries; they're also considering "food miles" — how far the grapes or pork chops traveled to get to the store. But some experts say eating food grown locally isn't necessarily the best way to go green at the grocery store.

Carla Harris broke through the glass ceiling on Wall Street. The financial services veteran offers career advice and strategies for success in her new book, Expect to Win: Proven Strategies for Success from a Wall Street Vet. Harris talks about her book, the financial crisis and challenges she faced as a woman of color on Wall Street.

Americans adopt thousands of children from other countries every year. The process can be tricky, and would-be adoptive parents often face the question "Why not adopt an American kid?" If you've adopted internationally, or are considering it, tell us about it.

The 1998 murder of Matthew Shepard drew new attention to hate crimes targeting people who are gay. But more than a decade later, Shepard's mother believes the national gay rights picture is not much better. Judy Shepard tells Neal Conan about her new book, The Meaning of Matthew.

Why don't woodpeckers get headaches? Why don't people like the sound of fingernails on a chalkboard? And what happens when you break a piece of raw spaghetti? Those are big questions, and solving them would be worthy of an award — well, at least an Ig Nobel award.

If you're still crossing items off your holiday gift list, remember this: You don't have to worry about the right fit or color, if you pick a book. Karen Grigsby Bates found plenty of titles worth adding to your shopping list, in categories ranging from novels to cookbooks.

Most NASCAR crashes are accidents, but when Carl Edwards sent Brad Keselowski's car flying into a wall, it was payback. Daniel Pierce argues new rules encouraging aggressive racing are taking the sport back to its roots.

The search continues for two missing climbers on Oregon's Mount Hood. Rescue workers found the body of the third climber, 48-year-old architect Kelly James, in a snow cave Sunday. His body was removed from the mountain Monday. Premier mountaineer Ed Veisturs says climbing mountains in the Northwest can be unpredictable and dangerous.

Baseball's Winter Meetings get underway this week in Orlando, Florida, where general managers from every team gather in a hotel to talk about trades and free agents.

Photographer Sam Fentress sees signs. For more than 20 years he has been shooting religious-themed, hand-crafted signs, from church billboards to biblical quotations in salon windows. He joins Farai Chideya to discuss his new book, Bible Road: Signs of Faith in the American Landscape and the deep well of spirituality in African-American communities.

A former Army machine gunner has won the Blooker Prize, awarded for the best book that began as a blog on the Internet. Colby Buzzell's book, My War: Killing Time in Iraq, is an account of post-invasion Iraq. It began as a blog written directly from the war zone.

More than 600,000 people are released from U.S. prisons every year. But imagine re-entering society in today's economy as a convicted felon. Jeffery Ian Ross and Stephen C. Richards, the authors of the book Beyond Bars, offer insights on a successful reentry into society, the local community and the job market.

Infomercials entice viewers to buy products that slice, dice and make life easier. Remy Stern, author of But, Wait...There's More! has studied the strategies of Billy Mays and his fellow pitch men. Tell us what you've bought from an infomercial, and what sold you on it.

Many parents worry about what their kids do on the Internet, and whether they'll be contacted by criminals who want to exploit them. It turns out that the threat of online predators may be overblown, though parents should still monitor their kids' Internet use.

Author Ethan Watters thinks that America is "homogenizing the way the world goes mad." In Crazy Like Us, he describes how America's approach to mental illness has spread to other cultures around the world, in a "globalization of the American psyche."

In celebration of National Poetry Month, O, The Oprah Magazine has published its first-ever poetry issue. The April issue features interviews with poet Mary Oliver and poet laureate W.S. Merwin. Several celebrities, including Diane Sawyer, Demi Moore and, of course, Oprah Winfrey, talk about why poetry is important to them.