Arts & Life

In 2009, a young American named Jason Rezaian moved to Iran to be a foreign correspondent.

His family's rug business in northern California had gone bust and Rezaian decided to take a chance at something new. A lot of foreign correspondents begin their careers this way, going someplace no one else can or will, selling their work to any news agency that will pay. The best of these, like Rezaian, often end up with real jobs.

In the late summer of 2018, The New York Times reported that St. Martin's Press had signed a seven-figure deal for a "tell-all book" about President Trump's White House.

The amount of the advance raised eyebrows because the author, Cliff Sims, had served 18 months in that White House without making much of a name for himself anywhere else.

Who was this Cliff Sims? What did he mean to Trump? And what might a book called Team of Vipers add to what had already been written and said about the snake pit at 1600?

Copyright 2019 Fresh Air. To see more, visit Fresh Air.

DAVE DAVIES, HOST:

This past fall, I was invited to be in the room when my niece gave birth to her third child (Hello, Liam!). As a writer who has no children and never will, I recognized this as an educational opportunity I could not pass up. What I did not realize was that it would be exactly the experience I needed to prepare myself for this review.

Copyright 2019 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice has been retold endlessly by now, from the numerous film, TV, and YouTube adaptations of the original novel to the many, many books that use its structure, characters, and story arc to do something different. P&P has been adapted into a zombie story (Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Seth Grahame-Smith), a mystery (Death Comes to Pemberley by P. D. James), a tale of a contemporary 30-something English spinster (Bridget Jones's Diary by Helen Fielding).

In a quiet college town — the fictional town of Santa Lora, in southern California — one by one, students fall victim to a bizarre contagious disease. They fall into a deep sleep, and don't wake up. In fact, some will never wake up. And the disease spreads throughout the town, quickly and indiscriminately.

In Holy Lands, Harry Rosenmerck, an aging cardiologist, has left New York and his medical practice to move to Israel — to raise pigs.

His ex-wife, Monique, is battling illness. Their son David has been estranged from Harry since he came out. Their daughter Annabelle is heartsick in Paris. And his rabbi is appalled.

Mala Vida — a noir by Marc Fernandez, translated by Molly Grogan — is the kind of novel that should be like catnip for me. It has a radio journalist as one of the protagonists (my parents and my grandfather were in radio, if you want to score points with me, feature a radio cabin and you get an extra star), at one point one of the characters goes to a city I've visited (Valencia, during the festival of the Falles, where I hate to say I fell ill with food poisoning courtesy of a paella) and it offers an exciting premise (decades-long baby snatching).

Copyright 2019 Fresh Air. To see more, visit Fresh Air.

DAVE DAVIES, HOST:

DAVE DAVIES, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Dave Davies in for Terry Gross, who's off this week. My guest, Tara Westover, grew up in a family of nine at the base of a mountain in Idaho. Her parents were religious fundamentalists. Her dad spent more time talking to his children about the end of the world or an apocalyptic confrontation with the government than college or careers. She never saw the inside of a classroom before she was 17.

Part 5 of the TED Radio Hour episode Approaching With Kindness.

About Özlem Cekic's TED Talk

After being elected to the Danish parliament, Özlem Cekic—a Muslim immigrant to Denmark—began receiving hate mail. To counter it, she did the unexpected: she met her harrassers face to face.

About Özlem Cekic

Part 4 of the TED Radio Hour episode Approaching With Kindness.

About Christine Porath's TED Talk

It's free to be kind, yet managers often ignore the value of appreciation. Christine Porath argues that workers and companies experience real costs when there is incivility in the workplace.

About Christine Porath

Part 3 of the TED Radio Hour episode Approaching With Kindness.

About Laura Trice's TED Talk

What would happen if we actually asked others to praise and appreciate us for the work we do? Laura Trice examines the importance of building our sense of self-worth by asking for what we need.

About Laura Trice

Part 2 of the TED Radio Hour episode Approaching With Kindness.

About Mike Robbins' TED Talk

After a career-ending baseball injury, Mike Robbins had to learn how to appreciate his time on the mound. He's found that making the effort to appreciate others has a real impact on their well-being.

About Mike Robbins

Part 1 of the TED Radio Hour episode Approaching with Kindness.

About AJ Jacobs' TED Talk

How many people helped make your morning coffee? AJ Jacobs set out to thank them all, from the farmer to the barista and everyone in between — and discovered the list was much longer than he thought.

About AJ Jacobs