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Novelist Nicole Krauss artfully weaves disparate stories of love and loss into a devastating examination of the weight of memory on those left behind. Four narrators are connected by an antique desk separated from its original owner during the Holocaust.

Most of what we know about Cleopatra was written by her enemies. A new biography aims to set the record straight, highlighting her achievements as a ruler, diplomat and author.

Sarah Rose's For All the Tea in China tells the story of how Britain hijacked control of the 19th century tea trade by transplanting production of the popular drink to India.

Author Ayelet Waldman, the author of Bad Mother, recommends three books about motherhood that offer a break from brutal "motherhood is hell" horror stories as well as cloying sentimentality.

Juggling a caregiving role with a full-time job is daunting. But it can be even more difficult working during the end stages of a loved one's life. Some companies are exploring initiatives to help their employees manage the ultimate transition.

Roth, who has been writing novels for more than a half-century, explains how he comes up with his ideas — and why he continues to write every day. In his latest work, Nemesis, he imagines a fictional polio outbreak set in his hometown of Newark, N.J., during the 1940s.

It is easy to talk about great ideas as if they were light-bulb moments — sudden epiphanies where everything comes together for you. But Steven Johnson, author of Where Good Ideas Come From, says the great ideas of the past have taken a lot more hanging out than you'd expect.

Tired of trying to break through the filibusters, steep the tea, climb the summits? In an era dominated by partisan shouting, Christine Rosen offers a reading list that should appeal to anyone — conservative and liberal alike — feeling left out of the debate.

Ideas that writer Jeff Goodell used to regard as bad science fiction — like launching particles into the stratosphere to reflect sunlight — are now being taken seriously because of global warming concerns. Goodell examines the science behind tinkering with the Earth's climate in his new book, How to Cool the Planet.

On Thursday, W.S. Merwin was named the 17th poet laureate of the United States. The two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, known for his anti-war poetry and environmental activism, joined Fresh Air's Terry Gross in 2008 for a discussion about memory, mortality and his writing process.