October 17, 2026

by Andrew Limbong, host of NPR's Book of the Day podcast

Hey newsletter readers! Last week we waxed nostalgic for The Giver. Some of your emails below. As always, the inbox is bookoftheday@npr.org. And if you want to hear the latest author interviews from across NPR, subscribe to NPR’s Book of the Day podcast. Here’s this week’s letter!

Sorry for being earnest but…

…rereading my copy of Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises fills me with the same warmth as looking at old family photos. I’ve got notes in the margins of this thing from when I first read it as a sophomore in college, then again a couple years later, then again a few years after that, and so on and so forth. I can mostly tell which bits of marginalia were written when — the vulgar and corny jokes about Jake’s injury were written at 19 (stress there on the TEEN part, so you can’t get mad at me). The more thorough exegeses making connections to other works of literature were written by a wiser, thoughtful, and more mature 21-year-old. The passages that are simply underlined with no notes were written by a working adult, reading for pleasure, just luxuriating in the language for the love of the game.

Scribner

I’m rereading it again now because the book is approaching its 100th birthday. I’m working on a radio piece talking to folks about its legacy and how it's aged, but I’m mostly just having a grand ol’ time re-visiting an old friend of a book. And much like revisiting an old friend, old baggage arises. Questions about the racism, antisemitism and homophobia that show up in the book have to be wrestled with, and weighted against the good found in the novel. Or does it? I know plenty of folks who think the book plain ol’ stinks! And that’s fine, too. There’s plenty of room in the pool for everyone, including the haters.

What camp are you in? I think it’s fairly objectively undeniable that the book has had a massive influence on writing — but that doesn’t mean you necessarily have to like it. Do you have any memories of the book? How do you think it’s aged in the past 100 years? Let us know — bookoftheday@npr.org.

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TBR Pile

From The Two Saddest Kitchens: A Comics Conversation. Bloomsbury Publishing

Does the thought of cooking a meal fill you with the heartburn of existential dread? Well, boy do we have a book for you. New Yorker cartoonists Roz Chast and Adam Katzenstein have banded together to make a graphic novel depicting their own fear and shame when it comes to cooking in their kitchens. In this review, Fresh Air book critic Maureen Corrigan says even those in love with home cooking will find something to laugh at: “The great food writer and chef Ruth Reichl has blurbed this book, saying: ‘I don't think I've ever laughed so hard.’ I second that blurb.”

Barr Pennington. What a name, eh? Without knowing anything else about him, you can picture the guy – late 50s, a professor or literary type, the type of guy who would….steal his sick wife’s manuscript and pretend it’s his own work? That’s what happens in Julie Orringer’s new novel, Luna, Phoenix, Queen. NPR book critic Heller McAlpin calls it a “masterfully plotted, gorgeously moving novel.”

Mailbag!

Last week we talked about your relationship with the Lois Lowry classic, The Giver. Here’s what you had to say:

Sofia J. wrote: “The Giver is my favorite book in the world! I gave my partner the annotated copy that my mom––a children's literature professor––had passed down to me. They weren't a huge reader at the time but were hoping to get back into the hobby as an adult. (Of course, I knew exactly what book to suggest.) They devoured the entire series. We listened to the audiobook of Messenger on a plane ride to visit their parents and I cried like a baby as the credits rolled. What a foundational piece of the Young Adult canon. I couldn't be more excited that Lois Lowry is back with something new.”

Jennifer B. wrote: “I was 27 when The Giver was first published, so I first encountered it when my daughter read it in 8th grade. It led to great conversations between us, and we continued them through other dystopian novels including The Hunger Games and Divergent series, and eventually adult ones (The Handmaid's Tale, Fahrenheit 451.) Over the years I have shared The Giver with my grandchild and in classrooms when I started teaching in my early 40s. Middle and high schoolers are deeply aware of issues of authoritarianism and injustice, and allowing them to explore these themes in fiction helps build empathy and critical thinking skills.”

Stevie H. wrote: “I just re-read The Giver last month - for the first time in 20 years. WHAT A BUMMER. My reread definitely gave me a fresh perspective, and an understanding of why I love dystopian fiction so much. The truth hurts. I’m tired. I’m angry. I’m going to reread some Atwood now.”

See you next week!

P.S., if a friend sent you this newsletter and you want to sign up, the place to do it is npr.org/newsletter/books. :)

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