TED

How 180 Strangers Built a Library Together | Rebecca Toh | TED

Every shelf in our library is like a little pocket universe, an interesting, almost voyeuristic glimpse into someone's heart and mind. And if you walk around our library, quite often you end up standing in front of a shelf thinking to yourself, "I think I know this person," even though, strangely, you've never met this person in your entire life.

EconTalk

The Death of Reading (with James Marriott)

Just as fast food gave rise to the gym, informational junk food may give rise to reading as an intentional discipline.

It's Been a Minute

Books can teach you to love yourself. If you let them.

In one book, everybody can change. In 300 pages, every character that you've met has become a new character by the end. And so, what might you do in 30 days, let alone 30 years? This is incredible. You get a snapshot of your potential every time you read a novel.

EconTalk

Dwayne Betts on the Iliad

It's a conversation about reading as communion--and how a 2,800-year-old story became, unexpectedly, a way of connecting to each other.

Book of the Day

What to read this summer, according to our NPR colleagues

I know a lot of people like to escape when they read, especially during the summer, but lately I've been liking books that are very much about what I'm doing in that exact moment. Like if I'm on vacation somewhere, I want to read about that place and this summer I'm mostly sticking around Brooklyn, so that's where I want my books to be, too.

Book of the Day

What to read this summer, according to our NPR colleagues

A lot of the non-fiction on this list takes big intimidating subjects and makes them more approachable, like good non-fiction often does.

TED

The Love of My Life (and Why I Need to Share It with You) | Ann Patchett | TED

I could see myself becoming that Hari Krishna, wanting to testify about the greatest love in my life, which is reading. So great is my need to share this love that it outweighs my significant need for privacy.