September 12, 2026

by Andrew Limbong

Hey newsletter readers! Got some great suggestions from you all on books about 9/11. Some of your emails below. As always, the inbox is bookoftheday@npr.org. And if you want to hear the latest author interviews from across NPR, subscribe to NPR’s Book of the Day podcast. Here’s this week’s letter!

Reading shelf-help books

Forgive the slight detour into internet rap arguments, but Vince Staples has been defending himself from his own fans this week after they got mad at him for comparing making music to flipping burgers. To paraphrase the back-and-forth, Staples was saying he treats his art like a job – a job that he is grateful for but a job nonetheless. Some fans saw that as him not valuing his art, not taking it seriously enough. But really, the opposite is true – he respects the art so much that he treats it like work.

Grand Central Publishing

The idea of art-as-work is very much at the core of Harlan Coben’s new book Plot Twist. It is not a new Myron Bolitar installment, or a standalone thriller featuring a missing person. In the tradition of Stephen King’s On Writing, Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird, Mary Karr’s The Art of Memoir, and countless others, this is a book of writing advice from a hugely successful writer. And if you’re at all familiar with Coben’s sheer output, you won’t be surprised that he’s a big proponent of a butt-in-seat, pen-on-paper, workman-like approach to writing. “Only writing is writing,” he writes early on in the book. “Outlining is not writing. Doing research is not writing. Creating a character is not writing.” In that way, the book is useful for a general self-help audience. Even if you’re not a writer, you could probably use a kick in the pants to get to work writing, gardening, cooking, building, etc.

There are some other practical bits of advice in the book specifically for writing, but the fun (and sometimes frustrating) aspect of the book is that Coben doesn’t have any strong beliefs outside of a few core tenets. A mantra repeated throughout is “if it helps me produce pages, good. If it doesn’t, bad.” Essentially, if writing in a coffee shop helps you, do it in a coffee shop. If writing at home is better, do it there. Do whatever it is you want to do, just get to work.

Have you read Coben’s book, or any other writer’s book of writing advice? Is there anything from those books that you still carry with you? Let us know – bookoftheday@npr.org.

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TBR Pile

Ann M. Martin, at her home in New York state. DeSean McClinton-Holland for NPR

Are you more of a Kristy or a Claudia? As a younger sibling, I was always more of a Karen. I am, of course, talking about The Baby-Sitters Club, which turns 40 this year. NPR’s Barrie Hardymon somehow beat me to the assignment and visited author Ann M. Martin for this profile.

There’s a new novel from Emily St. John Mandel, titled Exit Party. The author of 2014’s Station Eleven is back with this latest one about, well, something involving doppelgängers, a disappearance, and a post-coup United States. Fresh Air book critic Maureen Corrigan calls Mandel’s vision “weird and arresting.”

Mailbag!

Last week, we talked about how authors processed 9/11 in the 25 years since the attacks. Here’s some of what you had to say.

Janis H. wrote: “I was moved by the treatment of 9/11 in the middle-grade book Elvis and the World As It Stands by Lisa Frenkel Riddiough. It's a lovely book about family (including a cat family) and the experience loss, and of working to build a new world. It reads like a classic!”

Sue K. wrote: “[Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close is] a beautiful story about grief, love and healing. The story follows Oskar, a young boy who loses his father in the Sept. 11 attacks. As he tries to understand his loss, he goes on a journey through New York City searching for the person connected to a key he finds among his father’s belongings. I just loved Oskar and my heart broke for him over and over. He’s a curious, intelligent and funny kid and I was fully invested in him from the get-go. Although the story deals with serious and emotional topics, there are also moments of humor and hope.”

Katy S. wrote: “It's not a particularly well-known book about the heroism that happened that day, but I enjoyed The Red Bandana by Tom Rinaldi. The story gripped me because of a volunteer firefighter's determination to save as many as he could, putting his life on the line to save others. Yes, I cried to learn he died during the collapse. But the story of his heroism has stayed with me for years after reading it.”

See you next week!

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