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Jane's Fame, Claire Harman's book about the author of Emma and Sense and Sensibility, reveals the gap between her legacy — modest, indifferent to fame and devoted to her characters — and her ambition.

NPR and the Kitchen Sisters are looking for stories from around the world of the hidden lives of girls — and the women they become. Stories of coming of age, rituals and rites of passage, secret identities — of women who crossed a line, blazed a trail or changed the tide. Share your stories with us.

The Jamaican musician was recently inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, as only the second reggae artist to be welcomed there. He spoke on his childhood fascination with music, which turned into a long and pioneering career.

Democrats unveiled what they hope will be the final version of their health care overhaul bill after days of closed-door meetings, setting the stage for a showdown vote in the House on Sunday. With his top domestic priority hanging in the balance, President Obama again postponed an overseas trip that has already been pushed back once.

Musician Alex Chilton died yesterday. He was the lead singer of the Memphis band Big Star. To remember the underground legend, Ed Ward reviews Keep an Eye on the Sky, a four-disc collection of recordings, demos and outtakes.

Until his arrest in 2004, nuclear scientist A.Q. Khan — the father of Pakistan's atomic bomb — ran a vast smuggling network that sent nuclear materiel to Iran and Libya. In his book Peddling Peril: How the Secret Nuclear Trade Arms America's Enemies, weapons expert David Albright explains how Khan's network continues to threaten global security.

The chief minister of India's most populous state came from humble origins, but Mayawati, as she is known, has not been shy about displaying her wealth. Recently, the show of opulence at a political rally — where she accepted a garland made entirely of money — seems to have gone too far, even by her standards.

Scholar Philip Jenkins argues that scriptures in the Quran are less brutal than those in the Bible. In his forthcoming book, Dark Passages, Jenkins points out that violence in the Quran is mostly defensive, but in the Bible, it is often a method of genocide.

Sebastian Faulks' satirical novel is a weeklong tour of modern London, woven together in Dickensian style. Dickens' 19th century characters dealt with class conflict, wealth, poverty and true love. Faulks' contemporary characters deal with terrorism, greed, the Internet and — because some things never change — true love.

The book by the conservative strategist is called Courage and Consequence: My Life as a Conservative in the Fight. Rove tells Fresh Air the decision to go to war in Iraq in 2003 was not based on wrong information from the Bush administration, but was based on wrong information from the intelligence community.