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In The Empire of Necessity, historian Greg Grandin tells the story of a slave revolt at sea. The 1805 event inspired Herman Melville's Benito Cereno, and Grandin's account of the human horror is a work of power and precision.

It's commonly thought that the Catholic Church fought heroically against the fascists in Italy. But in The Pope and Mussolini, historian David Kertzer says the church actually lent organizational strength and moral legitimacy to Mussolini's regime.

The Olympic sport of curling is a combination of bowling, bocce ball, billiards and chess — all on ice, and with some sweeping involved. NPR's Tamara Keith spent some time learning how to curl, and put together this cheat sheet.

The Office writer B.J. Novak expands his scope from Dunder Mifflin to the range of human experience in a new short story collection. We've got an exclusive excerpt — with readings by Novak himself, Mindy Kaling and Emma Thompson.

Sandy Pollock and Crystal Cook, aka the Casserole Queens, pass along a recipe for King Ranch Casserole. Sandy grew up with the cheesy Tex-Mex dish and says the traditional quick-fix doesn't need updating. Never mind if the casserole's origins have gotten mixed up along the way: This one's a keeper.

China may have just dislodged the U.S. from a position its held for decades — the world's top trading nation. The latest Chinese figures put the value of its overall trade at $4.6 trillion last year. The U.S. will release its own 2013 data next month.

A drop in the numbers of fierce beasts worldwide might seem like good news for deer and antelope. But expanding herds of grass-eaters leave stream banks naked and vulnerable to erosion, and can even change the stream's course, according to scientists calling for more protection of large predators.

"I see the government operating the way the founders intended," says FBI Director Jim Comey, who notes that branches of the U.S. government approved the bulk collection of U.S. phone records.

There are about 137 million jobs in America. Here's how they break down — and how the picture has changed over the past few years.

Slow-cooking expert Stephanie O'Dea shares the story behind her KFC-inspired chicken: It was an attempt to recreate the Colonel's secret recipe so that her daughter, who has celiac disease, could experience a taste most Americans take for granted. In a twist, O'Dea also wanted to cook the chicken in a Crock-Pot.