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Southern Russia, the venue for the coming Winter Olympics, is a wild land known for its breathtaking beauty and centuries of conflict. It has long inspired Russian writers; here are three classic books on the region.

Kids can be magical and maddening. The title of Jennifer Senior's book — All Joy and No Fun — contrasts the strains of day-to-day parenting with the transcendent experience of raising a child.

The federal budget deficit is falling sharply, but you wouldn't know it from some of the rhetoric in Washington. But Republicans caution that the downward trend line will reverse itself soon enough.

Wiley Cash's new novel follows two sisters whose errant father kidnaps them out of foster care after their mother dies. Cash tells NPR's Rachel Martin about his decision to set the story during Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa's 1998 home run battle.

There is an oil rush in North Dakota right now. The state is pumping out 10 times the crude oil it did a decade ago. Fortunes are being made, and once-sleepy towns are now bursting at the seams.

The New Zealand-born author Adam Christopher has a fascination for America — his latest, Hang Wire, is a decade-jumping, character-crisscrossing urban fantasy set in San Francisco. Reviewer Jason Heller says that with Hang Wire, his fourth novel, Christopher has mastered "geek-centric weirdness and galloping, whiz-bang pace."

An intense debate is underway in Pakistan over what to do about a surge of deadly Taliban attacks. The city's chief counterterrosim officer was killed a few weeks ago. Superintendent Chaudhry Aslam Khan was and remains a legendary figure.

A Chinese cookbook author remembers her childhood in China, where dumplings were steamed to conserve precious cooking oil. Recently she gave her favorite steamed dumplings an update.

With thousands of oil-related jobs in western North Dakota, some of the region's new workers are putting down roots. But many more commute from states where jobs are hard to come by — and that can mean being separated from spouses and children for weeks at a time.

Chips and dip may be the usual suspects on Super Bowl Sunday, but Food Network's Sunny Anderson recommends that you try something new, too. The main event of her big game party? The Beefy Butternut Squash Chili — a hearty, spicy meal that's fit to be a halftime headliner.