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A classical scholar with a voracious appetite for high and low culture alike, he's dauntingly smart — but far too interested in why we love what we love to be a snob. Jacki Lyden talks to Mendelsohn about his new essay collection.

Italian professor Joseph Luzzi's new memoir digs into the divisions in Italian society: north and south, poor and rich, and the question of his own complicated identity as an Italian American.

John Barth, the playfully erudite author whose darkly comic and complicated novels revolved around the art of literature and launched countless debates over the art of fiction, died Tuesday.

Writer and cartoonist Jonny Sun's new book is a collection of essays, reflections and illustrations that consider everything from Tetris to succulent plants to dealing with loneliness.

Writer David Taylor's trip down a dirty river in suburban Dallas led to a new understanding of nature. He lends Debbie Elliot his views on how Texans relate to the environment. He edited the new book Pride of Place.

Christian Wiman's new essay collection, My Bright Abyss, explores his ideas about faith and life during a time of intense crisis — in Wiman's case, a rare and painful cancer. Reviewer Walton Muyumba says Wiman's "intense questioning and dense resolutions are challenging," but ultimately rewarding.

NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with author Ann Patchett about her latest collection of essays, These Precious Days, and how she ended up quarantining with Tom Hanks' personal assistant.

Helen Keller learned to communicate through the eyes and ears of others after a fever left her deaf and blind as an infant. The author, activist and lecturer discusses her vision of faith, from an essay broadcast in 1951.

The theme for this year's gala is "Camp: Notes on Fashion" — a nod to the 1964 essay by Susan Sontag. Here's a roundup of celebrities who very much understood the assignment.

A native of Berkeley Heights, N.J., Peter Sagal attended Harvard University and subsequently squandered that education while working as a literary manager for a regional theater, a movie publicist, a stage director, an actor, an extra in a Michael Jackson video, a travel writer, an essayist, a ghost writer for a former adult film impresario and a staff writer for a motorcycle magazine.