NPR's Book of the Day

Dame Judi Dench made her debut as Ophelia in Hamlet with the Old Vic Company in 1957, and she’s since won an Oscar, BAFTA Awards, Olivier Awards and Golden Globes. She played Queen Victoria in Shakespeare in Love and M in the James Bond franchise. Now, along with co-author Brendan O'Hea, she’s added a memoir to her repertoire: Is It Too Late to Make a Run for It? Dench and O'Hea joined Weekend Edition’s Scott Simon to talk about her career, prankster reputation on set, and what makes theater so enduring.

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Who? Weekly podcast hosts Lindsey Weber and Bobby Finger assert in their new book I Want to Be Famous that classic celebrityhood – made up of A, B and C-listers – is over. In the wake of ever-changing definitions of fame, influencing and celebrity, they propose a who-versus-them binary, split into the people most of us have to ask “Who is that?” when they come up in conversation versus the ones where most people would say  “Oh, I know them.” Weekend Edition’s Ayesha Rascoe talks with Weber and Finger about modern-day fame, celebrity scandals and the money that drives it all.

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Deesha Philyaw, who grew up going to church, says you can leave religion behind but “the pastor and your mama are still in your bedroom.” That premise informs her new novel The True Confessions of First Lady Freeman, which centers on Scharisse, a megachurch pastor’s wife who receives an invitation to compete in an exclusive pageant. But when a scandal breaks out, Schar’s carefully crafted image is challenged. In today’s episode, Philyaw joins All Things Considered’s Juana Summers for a conversation about womanhood, identity and freedom in the Black church.

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It’s been 15 years since Chad Harbach published The Art of Fielding, a book about a star college baseball player at a fictional Wisconsin liberal arts college. His new book The Brightness isn’t quite a sequel, but a follow-up that returns to that same world. The novel focuses on a group of young women who execute a controversial prank on campus. NPR’s Andrew Limbong spoke with Harbach about writing a campus novel that predates Covid, Trump’s presidency and TikTok, the author’s experience being “scooped by reality” and why he chose to focus this project on female friendship.

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Lawrence Wright’s new book Redemption is a story about two groups of women who live surprisingly similar lives. One is on death row in Gatesville, Texas. The other group is a nearby Catholic order, the Sisters of Mary Morning Star. Redemption: Faith, Justice, and Sisterhood on Death Row is an account of their alliance. In today’s episode, Wright speaks with Morning Edition’s Steve Inskeep about the idea of second chances, the likeness betw

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