Sam Briger

Pamela Paul of The New York Times talks about her own new book, which chronicles every book she's read since she was 17 years old. Even if a work isn't great, she refuses to brush it aside cavalierly.

Cookbook author Julia Turshen says cooking should be flexible: "[Recipes] are kind of sold to people as prescriptions, these really precise things, ... but I think there's very rarely a wrong answer.

The protagonist of Sebastian Barry's new novel is conscripted right off the boat as the price of American citizenship. Eventually he finds love and companionship with one of his fellow soldiers.