November 1, 2012 Thomas Ricks' new book, The Generals, is about what he sees as a decline of American military leadership and accountability. He says that in World War II, generals were held accountable for their lack of success — but that started to change with the Korean War.

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November 1, 2012 Former schoolteacher Rick Riordan delivers a lesson in ancient Egyptian history cleverly disguised as a hair-raising kids adventure. Carter and Sadie Kane have no idea they are descended from age-old sorcerers until their archaeologist father accidentally unleashes ancient gods into modern society.

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November 1, 2012 Novelist Richard Russo's new memoir, Elsewhere, is the uncompromisingly tragic — yet beautifully told — story of his relationship with his mentally ill mother. Reviewer Michael Schaub calls it "one of the most honest, moving American memoirs in years."

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October 11, 2012 This week, get an exclusive taste of the new Ian McEwan book, Sweet Tooth, plus our review of Kurt Vonnegut's Letters. And Richard Russo discusses his memoir about his gallant, but neurotic, single mom.

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November 1, 2012 Blogger and now cookbook author Deb Perelman insists you don't need a big or gourmet kitchen to make good food. Since 2006, she's been tracking down, testing and blogging about recipes she thinks pretty much anyone can make — all from her tiny New York kitchen.

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October 31, 2012 Author Ian McEwan's latest novel tells the story of a young woman who works for the British intelligence agency MI5 and an assignment she gets that changes her life. Sweet Tooth is a love story with notes of deception and betrayal mixed in.

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October 31, 2012 Hellboy creator Mike Mignola and collaborator Christopher Golden have written a spooky novella about a priest using puppets to convey the word of God to war-scarred children in 1940s Sicily. Reviewer Glen Weldon says the exhaustively researched plot is let down by bad pacing.

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October 31, 2012 The classic horror novel The Exorcist inspired an even creepier movie, but author Mark Danielewski says after he saw the film, it changed the book in his mind forever. Has a movie ever overtaken its literary counterpart in your imagination? Tell us in the comments.

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October 30, 2012 Kurt Vonnegut aspired to be a sort of "cultivated eccentric." Reviewer Drew Toal says a new collection of Vonnegut's letters — by turns hilarious, heartbreaking and mundane — reveals just how uneccentric the writer actually was.

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October 30, 2012 Pulitzer Prize-winning author Richard Russo grew up in a burned-out New York mill town, with a gallant, but neurotic, single mom. In his new memoir, he writes that, for better or worse, he and his mother were always close — even when that meant moving away to college together.

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October 29, 2012 As the East Coast hunkers down for the onslaught of Hurricane Sandy, NPR Books dug back into the archives to find stories about keeping safe — and sane — when disaster strikes.

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