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At 19, the heroine of Isabel Allende's florid, frenzied Maya's Notebook is in a tailspin of drugs, prostitution and crime. Sent by her grandmother to hide out with an old friend on an island off Chile, she finds love and redemption. Reviewer Mary Pols doesn't buy it.

Once people figured out how to roast the seeds of the Coffea plant in the 1400s, coffee took over the world. In doing so, it fueled creativity, revolutions, new business ventures, literature, music — and slavery.

Shows like Good Morning America and the Today show can have a big impact on a broadcast network's image and bottom line. NPR's David Greene speaks with media reporter Brian Stelter about Top of the Morning, his new book about the high-stakes world of morning TV.

Most Americans think of prejudice as animosity toward people in other groups. But two psychologists argue that unconscious bias — often in the form of giving some people special treatment — is the way prejudice largely works in America today.

In their new book, The New Digital Age, Google's Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen discuss balancing privacy and security in the digital age — especially in countries with no history of privacy legislation — and the lack of a delete button on the Internet.

Animals and humans have a lot in common, including some of the health problems that plague them. In her book Zoobiquity, Dr. Barbara Natterson-Horowitz explores how studying animal illness — from cancer to sexual dysfunction — can help us better understand human health.

Some people, unlucky in love, turn to matchmaking services. Thomas Day, an 18th century British intellectual, adopted two girls from an orphanage in order to mold them into the women of his dreams. Reviewer Cord Jefferson says Wendy Moore's history is so adroitly written it reads like a novel.

Jean Thompson's The Humanity Project follows the fortunes of a number of hard-luck people — and looks at the bizarre, sad and funny ways we fail to help others.

The Obama administration is doubling its non-lethal assistance to the Syrian opposition, Secretary of State John Kerry announced at an 11-nation "Friends of Syria" meeting in Turkey this weekend. The aid comes amid concern about the rising presence of Islamist fighters among the opposition.

In his latest book, the author of The Omnivore's Dilemma and In Defense of Food turns his attention to how we use the four classical elements to transform plants and animals into food, and argues that home cooking can remake the American food system.