Author Interviews

'Waiting To Be Heard' No More, Amanda Knox Speaks Out

Sat, 18 May 2013 20:41:00 +0000

When 20-year-old Amanda Knox left for Italy in August 2007, it was supposed to be a carefree year studying abroad.

No one could have foreseen it ending in her being accused, tried and convicted in the murder of her roommate, Meredith Kercher.

The case, and Knox, became an international media sensation.

"I think that there was a lot of fantasy projected onto me," she tells weekends on All Things Considered host Jacki Lyden.

'That's That': A Memoir Of Loving And Leaving Northern Ireland

NPR Staff — Sat, 18 May 2013 11:23:00 +0000

Colin Broderick's first book, Orangutan, told the story of the 20 years — at least, as he could remember it — of being drunk, drug addicted and often desperate struggling to make his way as an Irish immigrant to New York.

His latest book might have been even harder to write: It's about what got him here to America.

Dan Brown: 'Inferno' Is 'The Book That I Would Want To Read'

Sat, 18 May 2013 11:23:00 +0000

Robert Langdon is back. The Harvard art professor in custom tweeds — and an ever-present Mickey Mouse watch — wakes up in a hospital after getting grazed in the head by a bullet, wondering how he ended up in Florence. He's got a sinister artifact sewn into his coat and just a few hours to keep the world from a grim biological catastrophe.

Dan Brown, whose book The Da Vinci Code — and several Robert Langdon sequels — has sold more than 200 million copies around the world, has written his first new novel in four years.

In Somalia, Surviving A Kidnapping Against 'Impossible Odds'

Tue, 14 May 2013 07:28:00 +0000

In 2011, Jessica Buchanan was an aid worker in northern Somalia, helping to raise awareness about how to avoid land mines. The north was the relatively safe section of the country; that October, she traveled to the more dangerous southern region for a training. The night before she left, she texted her husband, Erik Landemalm, also an aid worker in Somalia. She asked him a question: "If I get kidnapped on this trip, will you come and get me?"

On the trip back from the training, Buchanan and a colleague found their convoy surrounded by armed Somalians.

'Guns At Last Light' Illuminates Final Months Of World War II

Tue, 14 May 2013 07:26:00 +0000

In December 1944, the Nazis looked like a spent force: The U.S. and its allies had pushed Hitler's armies across France in the fight to liberate Europe from German occupation.

The Allies were so confident that the Forest of Ardennes, near the front lines in Belgium, became a rest and recreation area, complete with regular USO performances.

"There would be entertainers coming through, including Marlene Dietrich, who was frequently at the front lines," says Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Rick Atkinson.