Lynn Neary
Lynn Neary is an NPR arts correspondent covering books and publishing.
Not only does she report on the business of books and explore literary trends and ideas, Neary has also met and profiled many of her favorite authors. She has wandered the streets of Baltimore with Anne Tyler and the forests of the Great Smoky Mountains with Richard Powers. She has helped readers discover great new writers like Tommy Orange, author of There, There, and has introduced them to future bestsellers like A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles.
Arriving at NPR in 1982, Neary spent two years working as a newscaster on Morning Edition. For the next eight years, Neary was the host of Weekend All Things Considered. Throughout her career at NPR, she has been a frequent guest host on all of NPR's news programs including Morning Edition, All Things Considered, Weekend Edition, and Talk of the Nation.
In 1992, Neary joined the cultural desk to develop NPR's first religion beat. As religion correspondent, Neary covered the country's diverse religious landscape and the politics of the religious right.
Neary has won numerous prestigious awards including the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting Gold Award, an Ohio State Award, an Association of Women in Radio and Television Award, and the Gabriel award. For her reporting on the role of religion in the debate over welfare reform, Neary shared in NPR's 1996 Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Silver Baton Award.
A graduate of Fordham University, Neary thinks she may be the envy of English majors everywhere.
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Tales about travel don't always end well: Planes crash into jungles and ships run aground. For NPR's "Book Your Trip" series, Lynn Neary considers the rich genre of travel disaster literature. -
The series uses simple language and fanciful adventures to introduce kids to literature, history and science. Author Mary Pope Osborne has visited some 1,800 schools, giving away her books to kids. -
The Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist says the myth of the cowboy feels "hollow." The Last Kind Words Saloon is a spare and unsentimental story about two Western icons, Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday.
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John Steinbeck's Dust Bowl story is "about haves and have-nots," says one scholar, "and that story is getting increasingly urgent." The book was first published April 14, 1939.
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In his new memoir, sous chef Michael Gibney spends 24 hours on the line, capturing the rhythm of a New York restaurant kitchen — from quiet morning prep work to dinner hour in full swing.
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Dinaw Mengestu is known for writing about the immigrant experience, but his latest novel takes a slightly different tack: It's about love born out of loneliness and need, and complicated by war.
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Flora & Ulysses, written by Kate DiCamillo and illustrated in black and white by K. G. Campbell, is this year's best children's book. The American Library Association made the announcement Monday. Locomotive, by Brian Floca, is the most distinguished picture book.
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Sue Monk Kidd, the author of the best-selling The Secret Life of Bees, takes on both slavery and feminism in her novel The Invention of Wings. It's a story told by two women: Hetty, a slave, seeks her freedom, while Sarah, her reluctant owner, rebels against her family to become an abolitionist.
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Publishers have flooded the market with books — both new and reprinted — about JFK this fall. Some hazard conspiracy theories or point out the failings of the Warren Commission. Others avoid the subject of the assassination, focusing on JFK's character and legacy. And one includes all 486 frames of the famous Zapruder film, published in their entirety for the first time. -
Joe Sacco has made a career of tackling difficult subjects through imagery. He's a journalist and cartoonist who has reported on the Middle East and Bosnia — in both written and comic form. In his latest book, The Great War, Sacco turns to history, producing a 24-foot-long depiction of the horrifying first day of the Battle of the Somme.
