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Melissa Block talks to Philip Reeves about reaction to the selection of a new pope to lead the Catholic Church, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Buenos Aires, Argentina.

In Joyce Carol Oates' latest novel, apparitions haunt the streets of sleepy 1905 Princeton, N.J. Oates says she wanted to explore the hypocrisy of wealthy white America in that era with her portrayal of a town where the denial of social and racial injustice produces monsters.

Mohsin Hamid's How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia explores life in the modern megalopolis and the growing scarcity of clean water. In search of his fortune, Hamid's protagonist lands on a scam to boil and sell tap water as bottled mineral water in a novel that takes inspiration from self-help books.

Celebrated novelist Aleksandar Hemon's first nonfiction book is a memoir of his early life in Sarajevo, his flight and acclimation to Chicago after the Bosnian War broke out, and the family tragedy that hit years after he made his new home in the U.S.

On Tuesday, 115 cardinals convened, celebrated mass and then entered the Sistine Chapel for the first day of closed door deliberations on who should be the next pope.

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg has drawn a lot of attention with her "sort of a feminist manifesto" Lean In. Critic Maureen Corrigan finds that much of the book is bland, but toward the end, Sandberg's intellectual charisma breaks through.

Author Dana Becker says that Americans are obsessed with curing stress, rather than identifying and addressing the forces that cause it. Becker explains the origins of the concept of stress, how "stress inflation" is affecting society, and why just eating more kale isn't enough.

Science journalist Emily Anthes talks about how scientists are engineering mice with tumors and working to create pigs that can grow organs for human transplant and insects that could serve as drones for the military.

On Tuesday, 115 "cardinal electors" will be locked inside the Vatican to begin the secretive process of selecting the new leader of the world's 1.2 billion Catholics. It's one of the more spectacular and intriguing theatrical dramas on the planet.

"The blunt truth is men still run the world," says Silicon Valley executive Sheryl Sandberg — and the problem begins as early as the playground, where assertive boys are called leaders, and assertive girls are called bossy.