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The prestigious publishing company Farrar, Straus and Giroux helped define the intellectual life of post-World War II America. Boris Kachka's book explores the company's history, from its founding in 1946 to its sale to a German conglomerate in 1994 and beyond.

Think of everything your brain processes in a single day: your breakfast, a stain on a book cover, a meeting at work. If you remembered all those things, your brain would reach capacity. Author and neuroscientist Penelope Lewis says sleep helps sort through the memories that are worth keeping.

Rose George spent several weeks aboard a container ship to research Ninety Percent of Everything, her book about the shipping industry. She writes, "There are more than one hundred thousand ships at sea carrying all the solids, liquids and gases that we need to live."

After an editor asked him to tone down his racial politics, the first-time author walked away from his book deal, moved to a smaller press and eventually published two books to critical acclaim. He hopes his story helps make the case for why publishers should welcome different voices to the table.

If the town of Tombstone, Ariz., sounds familiar, it probably has to do with what happened there in 1881 — the year of the infamous gunfight between lawman Wyatt Earp and a rival gang. A new memoir by Justin St. Germain weaves the story of the O.K. Corral into another, more personal tale.

Spanish novelist Javier Marías is well-known in Europe, but not as popular in the United States. Critic John Powers says Marías' latest work — an unsettling, slightly sinister twist on the mystery novel — ought to raise the author's profile here in America.

When she was 24, Piper Kerman dated a woman who was part of a drug smuggling ring. Years later, after being named as part of that ring, Kerman served time in a federal prison and at one point shared a cell with her former girlfriend. Her memoir of that experience inspired the Netflix series.

Ruthann Robson's new book explores the issues around what we wear and how it's legislated, including everything from First Amendment questions to government concerns about public nudity.

The Storied South is a new book by folklorist William Ferris, collecting 40 years worth of oral histories from Southern writers and artists. Ferris tells NPR's Celeste Headlee that the book was a way of getting everyone from Eudora Welty to Bobby Rush to a "common table of conversation."

Rachel Renee Russell's very popular series stars a not-so-popular protagonist. The Dork Diaries are written by Nikki Maxwell, a misfit at a new school. Russell was inspired to write the books after seeing her own daughters struggle with the "dork" label during their teenage years.