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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's latest book tells the story of Ifemelu and Obinze, who fall in love as students in Nigeria but soon emigrate to different countries: Ifemelu to America and Obinze to England. Adichie tells NPR's Scott Simon that Ifemelu's discovery of racial identity mirrors her own.

NPR Correspondent Howard Berkes covered the 1980 eruptions of Mount St. Helens and has reported on changes at the volcano since. In an essay for NPR.org, Berkes recalls the massive blast of May 18, 1980, and its aftermath.

Davis was a public intellectual best known for his book City of Quartz and other searing critiques of capitalism, corruption and environmental degradation.

Critic Heller McAlpin calls Valeria Luiselli's novel a "philosophical funhouse" that melds the story of a charming auctioneer with meditations on the value of objects and the power of story.

Author John Updike, the relentless chronicler of postwar America, has died. He was 76. Updike is best known for his four Rabbit novels. Updike also contributed stories, essays, poems and book reviews to The New Yorker. David Remnick, the magazine's editor, talks to Renee Montagne about how Updike will be remembered.

American Muslim author Haroon Moghul was bound and determined to go to his high school prom — and he wrote about it for the new essay collection, Salaam, Love: American Muslim Men on Love, Sex and Intimacy. Moghul tells NPR's Rachel Martin that he thought the experience might help him understand himself better.

Sloane Crosley's new novel, The Clasp, follows a group of disaffected 30-somethings who gather for a classmate's posh wedding — but the casual misanthropy of the characters dims the book's pleasures.

Many people are racking their brains to find a Mother's Day gift. But a group of women wrote about gifts their mothers gave them. Their essays are part of the book What My Mother Gave Me: Thirty-One Women on the Gifts That Mattered Most. Host Michel Martin speaks with the editor and a contributor.

Cambridge classics professor Mary Beard's latest book, Confronting the Classics, takes a gleefully contrarian approach to marble-bust greats like Homer and Thucydides. Reviewer Annalisa Quinn says the work "expertly straddles the line between scholarly and accessible."

In her new book of essays, I See You Made an Effort, comedian Annabelle Gurwitch muses on middle-aged life. Critic Heller McAlpin says that the book, infused throughout with "sharp wit," is hilarious.