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Nkosi Johnson inspired millions in Africa and around the world to action in the fight against AIDS. The South African boy died of AIDS at age 12 is the subject of a new book by ABC newsman Jim Wooten, who says the boy's courage in the face of death was deeply moving.

NPR's Jennifer Ludden talks to aspiring outdoorsman and occasional NPR contributor Doug Fine about his new book, Not Really an Alaskan Mountain Man. It's a comic account of five years spent learning to survive in Alaska.

Jesse Goolsby, author of I'd Walk with My Friends If I Could Find Them, says it's not only a question of appreciation. "We just want a conversation about what our country asks of us," Goolsby says.

In the new collection Changing My Mind: Occasional Essays, author Zadie Smith explores her writing process and the people who have influenced her. Smith tells NPR she doesn't write every day, though she wishes she did — and that she used writing as a way to mourn her father.

Film critic Leonard Maltin's new book is called 151 Best Movies You've Never Seen. Some of his picks featured giant stars like Jack Nicholson in less famous roles, and some starred complete unknowns. Maltin shares a few of his favorites.

In summer 2001, New Yorker Beijing correspondent Peter Hessler got his Chinese driver's license. For the next seven years, he traveled thousands of miles through China, reporting on how the car is transforming the country.

Who wants to live forever? Apparently, enough people to support an entire industry of pills, creams, tonics and surgeries meant to keep people alive well into three digits. Guy Raz speaks with Greg Critser, author of Eternity Soup: Inside the Quest to End Aging.

When Paula Butturini's husband was shot, he almost died of his injuries. But physical wounds turned into deep psychological scars. Butturini talks to Linda Wertheimer about her memoir, Keeping the Feast, and how food helped set the stage for recovery.

Written by 22 authors, originally released as an audio book, and now available in hardcover, Watchlist is a thriller that takes wild twists and stylistic departures each time a new author takes control of the narrative.

Author Nicholas Carr is says the Internet is changing the way we think — and not for the better. In his new book, The Shallows, he laments that the Web has returned humans to the "natural state of distractedness" that served us well back when we were cavemen.

In 1999, Tom DeBaggio was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's disease. He was 57. Soon after the diagnosis, he began talking with NPR about his illness. He wanted to document his decline, to break through what he called the "shame and silence" of the disease. Now he can't talk, walk or feed himself.

The steps taken to prevent an economic collapse have challenged longstanding assumptions about the operation of modern free-market capitalism championed by Adam Smith, and the role of the government in the economy.

In-N-Out Burger is a phenomenally successful West Coast chain that has stuck to burgers, fries and shakes. BusinessWeek reporter Stacy Perman has written a new history of In-N-Out. She says the chain has persisted with its original formula: Keep it simple; do one thing, and do it the best you can.

In the novel Touch, Francine Prose tells the story of the conflicting accounts that arise after a 14-year-old girl is groped by three male friends on a school bus.

Opium harvested from poppy fields in Afghanistan is helping to fund the insurgency throughout the country. Author Gretchen Peters says the growing alliance between drug traffickers, terrorist groups and the Taliban has made the Taliban richer and more ruthless.

European journalists Serge Michel and Michel Beuret have chronicled China's push into Africa in the new book China Safari: On the Trail of Beijing's Expansion in Africa. Guy Raz talks with Serge Michel about why it's in China's interests to maintain a level of tension in Sudan.

Bill Streever's new book, Cold, is a collection of chilly vignettes about frozen Arctic explorers, killer blizzards and icicle frogs — among other icy topics.

The history of the New World is intertwined with the history of rum. That's the view Wayne Curtis takes in his book And a Bottle of Rum: A History of the New World in Ten Cocktails. Curtis elaborates in a conversation with Debbie Elliott.

Renee Montagne talks with Time Magazine's Azadeh Moaveni about how the nuclear debate is playing in Iran. Moaveni says the debate sounds different when you're in Tehran. Nuclear power is an issue of national pride, and the domestic press doesn't talk about the consequences Iran faces by pursuing nukes.

American forces are evacuating thousands of U.S. citizens from war-torn Lebanon. But smaller evacuations take place quite often and receive barely a mention in the media — the evacuation of families and non-essential personnel from U.S. embassies in countries that have become dangerous.

Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody said the moves by the Biden administration "will cost the state millions of dollars on law enforcement, incarceration, and crime victim’s assistance."

The Golden Spruce: A True Story of Myth, Madness, and Greed tells the story of a sacred tree, a logger-turned environmentalist and a shocking act of environmental protest in the woods of British Columbia. Michele Norris talks with author John Vaillant.

The front porch of New Orleans Times-Picayune columnist Chris Rose became an unofficial town hall and community center after Hurricane Katrina. Neighbors congregated to vent, cry and laugh; he likens it to a "24-hour therapy session."

William James was an intellectual force of nature in 19th century America. Trained as a medical doctor, he saw links between the life sciences, psychology and philosophy, and was a seminal thinker on religion. Author Robert D. Richardson has written a new biography called William James: In the Maelstrom of American Modernism.

Alexandra Silber's father died when she was just 18 — the same age as Fiddler's Hodel when she leaves her dad at a train station. Silber's new novel, After Anatevka, tells the rest of Hodel's story.