Karen Grigsby Bates

Twenty years ago, Diana Gabaldon's time-travel epic Outlander shot to the top of the best-seller lists — and stayed there. NPR's Karen Grigsby Bates digs into the enduring potency of Gabaldon's magic.

In her new book, Rachel Howzell Hall introduces Elouise "Lou" Norton, a fiercely ambitious homicide detective who patrols the same Los Angeles streets that she — and Hall — grew up on.

Fifty years ago, when the ultra-conservative wing of the GOP overthrew Republican moderates to choose Barry Goldwater as the party standard-bearer, black voters deserted the GOP in droves.

Writer Walter Dean Myers died on Wednesday after a brief illness at age 76, leaving mourners in the adult world and young readers who saw themselves in his books. He expanded the face of publishing so that many children of color saw themselves reflected in his work.

Myers wrote more ...

Paul Mazursky earned his first Oscar nomination for his debut feature film, Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, in 1969. His An Unmarried Woman was nominated for Best Picture.

Twenty years after O.J. Simpson was accused of murdering his ex-wife and her male friend, reverberations from his trial and acquittal still ripple through Los Angeles.

According to the Alzheimer's Association, more than 5 million Americans have the memory-robbing disease and African-Americans are twice as likely as whites to develop the late-onset version of the illness.

Princess Yasmin Aga Kahn (daughter of film icon Rita Hayworth, who died of the disease) and actor David Hyde ...

The Council of Fashion Designers of America awards (the CFDA) are the fashion industry's equivalent of the Oscars: big, glittery, hugely prestigious. The red carpet before and after the ceremony is avidly watched. Unlike the Chambre Syndicale, which regulates France's couture and related industries, the CFDA is more of a ...

The Sriracha-slurping public no longer has to worry about hoarding bottles and bottles of the spicy stuff: There will be hot sauce tomorrow and for the foreseeable future. Sriracha will continue to be made in the state-of-the-art plant David Tran built in Irwindale, Calif. And residents near the plant who ...

Poet, performer and political activist Maya Angelou has died after a long illness at her home in Winston-Salem, N.C. She was 86.

When it was published 45 years go, Sam Greenlee's novel The Spook Who Sat By the Door got a lot of media play. The book centered on a conspiracy theory — a popular trope of fiction at the time — not so surprising, as government-sanctioned spies had been surveying black ...

Brown v. Board of Education became the law of the land when it struck down de jure segregation in Topeka, Kan., on May 17, 1954, saying, "We conclude that, in the field of public education, the doctrine of 'separate but equal' has no place. Separate facilities are inherently unequal."

The ...

"There is no such thing as conversation," wrote Rebecca West in her story "The Harsh Voice." "It is an illusion. There are intersecting monologues, that is all." The same could be said for books, as well — even the best histories and biographies are necessarily filtered through the sensibilities of ...

After months of tussling with the city council over the smells emitted by his factory, Sriracha maker David Tran says he might expand his business, but the main operation will not relocate.

It's the end of an era, as Johnson Publishing Co. announced plans to cease printing Jet. The magazine, which started some 63 years ago, was long a staple for many African-Americans.

Almost 21 years ago, Whoopi Goldberg was honored at the New York Friars' Club. More than 3,000 people crowded into the New York Hilton to hear Goldberg roasted by her celebrity friends.

The Friars' is a show business charity, and their roasts are famous. Good taste and delicacy are usually ...

Jessica Cleaves, the female lead for the '70s soul-pop group The Friends of Distinction, died on Friday, one of the last voices from the Golden Age of Pop and Soul. The four Friends performed tightly-harmonized songs that referenced the looser, hipper culture that flourished in the late '60s and early ...

A United Nations committee on Monday grilled a Vatican representative about priest sex abuse and compared the impact of the scandal to torture.

But Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Holy See's top envoy in Geneva, said the Vatican leadership had improved its handling of abuse in the decade since the scandal ...

On Wednesday, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel's office announced it will revisit the matter of AR 670-1. That's a recently revised Army grooming regulation that many black women feel unfairly targets them, as it forbids many natural hairstyles they commonly wear.

Hagel's announcement followed complaints and a written request ...

The LA Clippers' owner had a track record of discriminatory behavior. Though the NAACP rescinded a planned award for him after his racist rant, it has honored him in the past.