Now Playing

Loading streams...

Books

Pages

Up to Date
10:20 am
Wed May 30, 2012

Writing What Didn't Happen: Historical Fiction

Share
E-mail
Comments
By , and

There's no debating that a good non-fiction book can bring life to overlooked history.  But when everything's been told about that event....or you have an idea for an "alternative" history, where to turn? Historical fiction.

Read more
Up to Date
10:48 pm
Tue May 29, 2012

The Unexpected Education Of Two Society Girls In The West

Next imagePrevious image
Credit Simon & Schuster
Author and New Yorker executive editor Dorothy Wickenden
Share
E-mail
Comments
By and

Take two East Coast society women, both single, throw them into the wilds of northwestern Colorado in 1916 to teach the kids there, and chances are, you'll get a pretty decent story.

Those ingredients are the underpinnings of Dorothy Wickenden's best-seller, Nothing Daunted: The Unexpected Education of Two Society Girls in the West.

Read more
Up to Date
5:18 pm
Wed May 23, 2012

Summer Reading For Children & Youth

Share
E-mail
Comments
By and

School’s out for summer, so keep your kids' brains busy, and develop that summer reading list.

Thursday on Up to Date, Steve Kraske welcomes Johnson County Library staffers Kate McNair, Debbie McLeod (ret.) and Bradley Debrick to share their favorite picks, from No Sleep for the Sheep to The ABCs of Baseball.

Read more
Up to Date
9:09 am
Mon May 14, 2012

The Information Diet

Credit O'Reilly Publishing
Share
E-mail
Comments
By , and

The great thing about modern technology?  We can easily and cheaply access data on just about anything 24/7.  The down side?  It’s being done in such great quantity and with such little regard for quality that it has led to "information obesity."

Read more
Up to Date
5:38 pm
Wed May 9, 2012

The Book Doctors

Next imagePrevious image
"From the Memoirs of a Non-Enemy Combatant" by Alex Gilvarry, one of Book Doctor Kaite Stover's picks
Sarah Levine's "Treasure Island!!!", one of Kaite Stover's picks
Chrisopher Moore's "Scare Blue: A Comedy d'Art," one of Kaite Stover's picks
Edward Humes "Garbology," one of Kaite Stover's picks
Robert Caro's "Passage Of Power," the fourth in his series about Lyndon Johnson. It's one of Steve Paul's picks.
Share
E-mail
Comments
By and

Summer's almost here, and if you're anything like Steve Kraske (that may be a good thing...or maybe not) you're searching for some great vacation reads.

Read more
Remembrances
8:11 am
Tue May 8, 2012

Fresh Air Remembers Author Maurice Sendak

Next imagePrevious image
Credit LS / AP
In this Sept. 25, 1985 file photo, author Maurice Sendak poses with one of the characters from his book Where the Wild Things Are, designed for the operatic adaptation of his book in St. Paul, Minn. Sendak died, Tuesday, May 8, 2012 at Danbury Hospital in Danbury, Conn. He was 83.
Credit HarperCollins / AP
Published in 1963, Where The Wild Things Are was a different approach to children's books — full of dark forests and fierce-looking monsters.
Credit Susan Ragan / AP
Sendak signs prints from The Mother Goose Collection in July 1990 — part of a benefit for homeless children in New York City.
Credit Stuart Ramson / AP
Sendak (from left), film director Spike Jonze and actor Max Records pose at the New York premiere of the film Where The Wild Things Are in 2009.
Credit Mary Altaffer / AP
"There are so many beautiful things in the world which I will have to leave when I die, but I'm ready," Sendak told Terry Gross in 2011.
Credit John Dugdale / HarperCollins Children's Books
Maurice Sendak wrote and/or illustrated more than 100 books during his career. He received a National Book Award, a Caldecott Medal, the Hans Christian Andersen Award for children's book illustration, and the National Medal of Arts.
Credit AP
Children's book writer and illustrator Maurice Sendak, author of Where the Wild Things Are, died on Tuesday at Danbury Hospital in Danbury, Conn. He was 83.
Share
E-mail
Comments
By editor

Originally published on Wed May 23, 2012 9:49 am

Author and illustrator Maurice Sendak, whose classic children's book Where the Wild Things Are became a perennial and award-winning favorite for generations of children, died Tuesday. He was 83.

Sendak appeared on Fresh Air with Terry Gross several times over the years. In 1989, he told Terry Gross that he didn't ever write with children in mind — but that somehow what he wrote turned out to be for children nonetheless.

Read more
Poetry
5:31 pm
Mon May 7, 2012

Poet Xanath Caraza Summons The African Roots Of Mexico

Israel Nazario's painting La Nina Que Corto La Flor (the girl who picked the flower) was the inspiration for Caraza's poem De Tus Manos (Out of Your Hands).
Share
E-mail
Comments
By

Kansas City poet Xanath Caraza recently published the poetry chapbook Corazon Pintado, a book of "ekphrastic poems" – or poems that respond to other works of art. 

Yanga, Yanga, Yanga

Yanga, Yanga, Yanga

Today, your spirit I invoke

Here, in this place

 

This, this is my poem for Yanga

Mandinga, malanga, bamba

Rumba, mambo, samba.

Read more
Up to Date
12:06 pm
Mon April 23, 2012

John Grisham On Wrongful Conviction & 'Calico Joe'

Next imagePrevious image
Share
E-mail
Comments
By and

Novelist John Grisham has churned out a novel a year since 1988. But believe it or not, he still has his moments of doubt.

Read more

Pages