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What began as a Harvard-only website is now the social networking tool of almost 500 million people worldwide. David Kirkpatrick examines the site's short history and its long-term potential in The Facebook Effect.

The genius, if antisocial, protagonist of the Fox series House uses a barrage of cutting-edge tests and procedures to help diagnose his puzzling patients. But how much does that actually cost? We take a close look at one episode to find out.

John McGahern struggled for 10 years to write the novel Amongst Women. Fellow Irish author Colm Toibin says it was worth the wait: The pacing of the novel is masterly, he says, and its rhythms are filled with hidden emotion.

Linda Greenlaw took a decade off from commercial fishing, but the siren call of the deep blue water drew her back in. The only female swordfish boat captain in the United States recounts her latest adventure at sea in a new memoir, Seaworthy.

When the Hoover Dam was finished in 1935, it was three times larger than any other dam on the planet. Journalist Michael Hiltzik examines the humongous engineering achievement — including how the Hoover Dam was conceived, designed and built — in a new book, Colossus.

The summer sun may be shining, but vampires don't seem to be going anywhere. NPR's Margot Adler has read more than 100 vampire books this year, and gives a heads-up on two bloodsucking books expected to be summer blockbusters: Christopher Farnsworth's Blood Oath and Justin Cronin's The Passage.

Pawnshops, payday lenders, check cashers and rent-to-own companies take in $33 billion a year. In writing his new book, Broke, USA, Gary Rivlin discovered how the businesses justified making huge profits off the working poor.

In A Mosque in Munich, Pulitzer Prize winner Ian Johnson explains how Western spy-masters recruited ex-Soviet Muslims to be operatives in the propaganda war against the Soviet Union. These Muslims, in turn, created a community where radical Islam could gain a foothold in the heart of Europe.

From the mercurial twists in CPE Bach's keyboard sonatas to the sprawling, nearly empty canvas of Morton Feldman's Trio, NPR Music's Tom Huizenga and Weekend All Things Considered host Guy Raz spin an extra-wide variety of new classical CDs.

Author Ayelet Waldman, the author of Bad Mother, recommends three books about motherhood that offer a break from brutal "motherhood is hell" horror stories as well as cloying sentimentality.