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School teacher Maria McCann did her homework when writing this erotic, historical novel about the English Civil War. Lionel Shriver says she couldn't stop reading about this torrid romance between two 17th century soldiers.

The Irish government has finally agreed to a bailout from the IMF and the EU, but the fact that the country even needed international aid has angered many people there. They are angry that the government let Irish banks overextend themselves, then promised to rescue them with billions of euros of Irish taxpayers' money. Many of Ireland's 4.5 million people are also angry that their long struggle for independence from Britain in the last century will now culminate in a loss of economic sovereignty. This anger is being expressed through biting satire, music and Guinness.

In 1962, 11-year-old Carlos Eire was one of thousands of children airlifted out of Cuba and sent to Florida to escape Fidel Castro's regime. His parents thought he'd return when Castro was deposed — but he never went home again. Eire recounts the experience in a new memoir.

This year, cooks poured their hearts into these carefully crafted, kitchen how-tos. T. Susan Chang says these cookbooks are like a properly seasoned skillet — heavy-duty, battle-tested and much to be prized.

Almost all modern computers descend from a machine built before World War II by physics professor John Atanasoff. But today, almost no one has heard of him. Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jane Smiley set out to remedy that.

It may not be in your history books. But it ended with scores of sunken ships, hundreds of missing soldiers and Revolutionary War hero Paul Revere facing charges of cowardice and incompetence. What went so wrong on the New England coast back in 1779?

This week saw two big music releases: a new album from pop baritone Josh Groban and the new download from mash-up genius Girl Talk. Music critic Tom Moon offers his thoughts on two very different albums.

NPR producer Art Silverman uncovers New Jersey's filthy situation: the Passaic River. U.S. manufacturing was jump-started along its banks. Now the river is so toxic, part of it is a superfund site, and much of the rest is, as one writer puts it, "a toilet."

NPR producer Art Silverman uncovers New Jersey's filthy situation: the Passaic River. U.S. manufacturing was jump-started along its banks. Now the river is so toxic, part of it is a superfund site, and much of the rest is, as one writer puts it, "a toilet."

Hamburg-born Astrid Kirchherr met the Beatles in 1960, before they were famous. She took some of the earliest photographs of the group and was engaged to Stuart Sutcliffe, the Beatles' original bassist, before he died of a brain hemorrhage in 1962.