Nezperce Community Library

It took over five years for Nathaniel Rich to finish his first novel — maybe because he was writing The Mayor's Tongue secretly, first as a college student, and then while writing film criticism during the day.

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The book by the conservative strategist is called Courage and Consequense: My Life as a Conservative in the Fight. Rove tells Fresh Air the decision to go to war in Iraq in 2003 was not based on wrong information from the Bush administration, but was based on wrong information from the intelligence community.

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U.S. military officials are preparing to attempt to take control of Kandahar away from the Taliban later this year. Two young Western residents of the city, Felix Kuehn and Alex Strick van Linschoten, describe what it's like to live and work under Taliban rule.

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Ada Calhoun, author of Instinctive Parenting, makes the case that children will turn out fine if parents simply trust their gut. But Po Bronson, co-author of NurtureShock, begs to differ — he says instincts may tell parents when something needs to be done, but not how to do it. He maintains experts are still relevant for that.

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The crime writer has more than 40 books to his name and dozens of films made from that source material. Leonard gives NPR's Noah Adams a tour of his hometown, with stops at some of the places that taught the writer about the language of crime, and at his writing desk at home.

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Diane Ravitch's Death and Life of the Great American School System is a scathing report card of U.S. education. The former assistant secretary of education hands down a withering critique of the nation's schooling efforts — from charter schools, to No Child Left Behind, to Teach for America.

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Michael Lewis' new book The Big Short chronicles the 2008 financial collapse through the investors who realized what was happening to the U.S. economy while it was happening — and then made a fortune by betting against the markets.

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Linda Wertheimer hails a Dickensian novel of London in the boom days of 2007, before the banking bust. An encore by child detective Flavia de Luce (Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie) is both creepy and laugh-out-loud funny. And So Much for That finds the hilarity in a relentless tale of runaway health care costs.

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Michael Lewis, who wrote the best-seller Liar's Poker, is back with a new book examining those who profited from shorting subprime mortgages. In The Big Short, Lewis profiles extreme characters — outsiders — who are the sane people in an insane world.

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A riveting account of the flawed leadership, bad luck and virulent personalities that led to the 2006 murder of an entire Iraqi family by American soldiers.

Conversations about race often focus on what it means to be black. But in her new book, The History of White People historian Nell Irvin Painter explores the concept of "whiteness" — and finds that who is "white" has actually changed throughout America's history.

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New collections of classic comics, including “Peanuts,” “Bloom County” and “Popeye.”

Novels by Dominick Dunne, Sadie Jones, Melanie Benjamin, Brian Hart and Elizabeth Kostova.