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Once a conservative advocate for the No Child Left Behind Act, Diane Ravitch has had a change in opinion. The former Bush administration education official has written a book spelling out the law's missteps and adverse effects on the U.S. education system.

Harry Markopolos spent nearly a decade on Bernard Madoff's trail. He says his efforts to alert securities regulators about Madoff's schemes were repeatedly ignored. In a new book, he details how the Securities and Exchange Commission still lacks the tools for the job.

Nearly every classical pianist loves Chopin. But pianists from Poland have a special bond with the music of their countryman. NPR Music's Tom Huizenga and Weekend All Things Considered host Guy Raz spin great Chopin recordings by Polish pianists from 1917 up to today.

Set in the buildup to Indonesia's 1965 civil war, Tash Aw's Map of the Invisible World is the story of a 16-year-old boy on a quest to find his stepfather.

Senior Indian and Pakistani officials held wide-ranging talks in New Delhi Thursday. The discussions were put on hold after the 2008 terrorist attack in Mumbai. A band of militants sailed from Pakistan and rampaged through India's commercial capital. U.S. officials are pressing the two sides to end their 63-year dispute.

Linguist Geoff Nunberg doesn't enjoy everything about the English language. There are phrases that get on his nerves and words that he prefers not to use. And Nunberg says he's not the first person to have linguistic pet peeves — nor will he be the last.

When author John Wray is looking for an escape, he doesn't search for a world filled with giants and wands. Instead, he dives into Riddley Walker's post-apocalyptic England. Even this grim, mutant-filled world is riddled with surprising shocks of recognition.

A first novel by a much-honored short-story writer imagines a financial system wracked by risk and on the verge of collapse. Yet Adam Haslett wrote Union Atlantic before the current financial crisis exploded, making him seem more prescient than he will confess to being.

William Halsted is credited with creating the United States' first surgical residency program and transforming the way operating rooms are sterilized. He was also a morphine addict. Plastic surgeon Gerald Imber details Halsted's dual lives in the new biography Genius on the Edge.

A book by the chairman of HSBC proposes a "new capitalism" that brings good business and good ethics together. In an NPR interview, Green, who is also an ordained priest in the Church of England, says moral and spiritual values should take precedence over immediate profit for the world's major banks.