Barrie Hardymon

Each week, the guests and hosts on NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour share what's bringing them joy. This week: For All Mankind, The Witcher, the BeReal app, and more.

Musician John Legend is using his national platform to elevate local races for district attorney — endorsing progressive prosecutors who prioritize preventative solutions over incarceration.

Lauren Tarshis's I Survived series takes kids through famous historical disasters — and more recent ones like the California wildfires. So they're perfect pandemic books for anxious little readers.

This Christmas a new adaptation of Little Women hits theaters. But must you read Louisa May Alcott's classic before you see the latest screen version? The answer is ... it depends.

When it's super hot, sometimes cold thoughts is all you've got. Three NPR colleagues offer suggestions on what to watch, hear and read to get in a chilled state of mind.

The novelist, who died last week at 91, was often slammed by critics as a frivolous sex-and-shopping writer. But her luxuries were meticulously researched and her sex scenes gloriously shameless.

Need summer book recommendations? From new novels, to classics, to nonfiction, here are our suggestions.

Judith Viorst's new collection of poetry is called Nearing 90, though she's quick to note she's only "a girl of 88." She's still writing, looking forward to grandchildren graduation, and feeling good.

It's hard to remember a world before Harry Potter. But it's been 20 years since readers in the U.S. were first introduced to the boy wizard, whose story has captivated audiences since.

Too hot to go outside? Weekend Edition has some suggestions for what to read while curled up under your ceiling fan this summer.

Weekend Edition editor Barrie Hardymon remembers saving up for her first Kate Spade bag as a young New York music student. Yes, it held her Russian novels — but it also represented something more.

After the success of shows like The Handmaid's Tale, more and more books are leaping from page to small screen.

Greek, Roman and Viking myths have always been perfect for teenagers — they're all id! — so NPR's Lulu Garcia-Navarro gets recommendations for new books using them as source material.

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood was a best-seller list after the 2016 election. We reread the dystopian classic to prep for a new TV miniseries that begins next week.

Nevermind that she didn't like kids all that much — Brown wrote books they adored. One of her previously unpublished picture books has just come out, as has a new biography of this brave, bold author.

Carrie Fisher's well known for her acting and comedy. NPR's Ailsa Chang talks with Weekend Edition books editor Barrie Hardymon about why we should remember Fisher as not just a Hollywood star.

One of the profound pleasures of reading to children, says Barrie Hardymon, is the thrill of sharing a story's secrets for the first time.

The arrival of a new mystery in a beloved series is always a much anticipated occasion — what's been happening with our favorite private eye? Has an admired police captain been promoted? Has a young lady hacker survived the vicissitudes of the last volume?

The third volume of the Cormoran ...

If the cold and snow has you feeling, well, frigid, here's the solution. Five titillating titles that'll put you in a steamy frame of mind.

My summer reading preferences are so particular they have, at times, stopped me from reading at all. I need a romance for a train trip — for obvious reasons. When it's hot, I prefer something with no climate congruence at all; I've never enjoyed Anna Karenina so much as I ...