Literature

On this week’s Shelf Discovery, Kristin gets a lesson in Jedi history from Tim Lebbon’s Into the Void

Title: Into the Void (Star Wars: Dawn of the Jedi)

Author: Tim Lebbon

Pages: 235

Publisher: LucasBooks

ISBN: 978-0345541932

And read Kristin’s full review on NightsAndWeekends.com.

While these days it's not uncommon to meet children with gay parents, in the 1970s it was. Alysia Abbott was one of those kids. When her parents met, her father — Steve Abbott — told her mother he was bisexual. But when Alysia was a toddler, her mother died in a car accident and Steve came out as gay. He moved with his daughter to San Francisco, just as the gay liberation movement was gaining strength.

While her father had not initially wanted a child, Abbott says he enjoyed spending time with her when she was a baby. Her mother's death brought the two of them even closer.

The daily lowdown on books, publishing, and the occasional author behaving badly.

For 20 years, Stephen King has had an image stuck in his head: It's a boy in a wheelchair flying a kite on a beach. "It wanted to be a story, but it wasn't a story," he tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross. But little by little, the story took shape around the image — and focused on an amusement park called "Joyland" located just a little farther down the beach.

Attributing human characteristics to animals makes for great cartoons, but it's not usually considered rigorous science. Now, a new book argues that animals do think and feel in ways similar to humans.

Barbara J. King is a professor of anthropology and a commentator on NPR's science blog, 13.7. And her book, How Animals Grieve, makes a powerful case for the presence of love, affection and grief in animals — from a house cat mourning her lost sister to elephants who pay respects to the bones of their matriarchs.

On this week’s Shelf Discovery, Kristin explores a land that never was with Mike Mignola and Christopher Golden’s Joe Golem and the Drowning City.

Title: Joe Golem and the Drowning City

Author: Mike Mignola and Christopher Golden

Pages: 272

Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin

ISBN: 978-1250020826

And read Kristin’s full review on NightsAndWeekends.com.

After years of trying to conceive, novelist Jennifer Gilmore and her husband decided to pursue a domestic open adoption. They were told they'd be matched within a year; it took four. And along the way they faced complicated decisions and heartbreak.

Halfway through The Unwinding, George Packer — author of the highly praised The Assassins' Gate: America in Iraq (2005) — delineates how quickly political idealism can disappear when one becomes exposed to a world of easy money.

On this week’s Shelf Discovery, Kristin investigates murder in the Everglades with Heather Graham’s Tall, Dark, and Deadly.

Title: Tall, Dark, and Deadly

Author: Heather Graham

Pages: 268

Publisher: Open Road

ISBN: 978-0451408471

And read Kristin’s full review on NightsAndWeekends.com.

Robert Langdon is back. The Harvard art professor in custom tweeds — and an ever-present Mickey Mouse watch — wakes up in a hospital after getting grazed in the head by a bullet, wondering how he ended up in Florence. He's got a sinister artifact sewn into his coat and just a few hours to keep the world from a grim biological catastrophe.

When 20-year-old Amanda Knox left for Italy in August 2007, it was supposed to be a carefree year studying abroad.

No one could have foreseen it ending in her being accused, tried and convicted in the murder of her roommate, Meredith Kercher.

The case, and Knox, became an international media sensation.

"I think that there was a lot of fantasy projected onto me," she tells weekends on All Things Considered host Jacki Lyden. "And that resulted in a re-appropriation and re-characterization of who I am."