Books & Ideas
Tracy Kidder didn’t set out to write a book about rural medicine, tuberculosis and AIDS in Haiti. Or education in America.
When Elizabeth Alexander sat down to write her latest book, she drew upon a lifetime of material from her extensive career as a scholar, author and poet.
Richard North Patterson’s new novel, Trial, puts some of America’s most urgent issues concerning race and voting rights on the stand.
For Jeannette Walls, truth is at the heart of writing, from her journalism and wildly-successful debut memoir to her most recent novel, Hang the Moon.
Every spring, avian enthusiast Christian Cooper spends his early mornings searching the Ramble in Central Park for migratory birds that make New York City home for the season.
Some books require research, the writer visiting archives and interviewing all manner of people.