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NPR's longest-serving reference librarian, Kee Malesky, is the author of a new book, Learn Something New Every Day: 365 Facts to Fulfill Your Life. Malesky offers facts for each day of the year, from the landing on the moon to the invention of sliced bread.

Some of science's great ideas were created in homespun ways. To test his ideas on evolution, Charles Darwin and his butler dropped asparagus into a tub. Darwin's oldest son studied dead pigeons by letting them float upside down in a bowl.

Flamboyant and confident, Marilyn Monroe oozed sex appeal. But in Joyce Carol Oates' Blonde, we see a woman overshadowed by her onscreen persona. Author Manuel Munoz says the novel gives a glimpse into the star's interior life. Have a favorite book about a celebrity? Tell us in the comments.

In his new book, author and Harvard literature professor Stephen Greenblatt explores the 2,000 year-old writings of Lucretius and his "spookily modern" creation tale.

From the racially charged Pure Food movement to the countercultural revolution of the 1960s, white bread has been at the spongy, store-bought heart of American food politics.

Novelist Marilynne Robinson takes on Christian faith and the American West in her new collection of essays, When I Was a Child I Read Books. "I find that the hardest work in the world," she writes, "... is to persuade Easterners that growing up in the West is not intellectually crippling."

Parents in Denver jump on the "bike bus" bandwagon, organizing group rides to a local elementary school as a safe, healthy and low carbon means of delivering kids to classrooms.

Anne Ursu's novel is a modern-day fairy tale set in the snowy woods near Minneapolis. In the latest installment of NPR's Backseat Book Club, Ursu explains that Breadcrumbs was inspired by her own childhood memories of white winters in Minnesota.

As companies have moved away from traditional pension plans, they've been shifting employees to 401(k)s that transfer the cost — and the risk — to workers. Companies have claimed for years that old-style pensions were unsustainable. But author Ellen Schultz says the shift has helped firms boost their bottom lines.

The rolling green hills and charming villages of the English countryside have inspired many a contemplative novel. Author Jesse Browner describes why none are quite so lovely as J.L. Carr's A Month in the Country.