Martha Woodroof

Novelist Louise Erdrich returns to the Ojibwe world in her latest work, but The Painted Drum also explores human relationships. The central character steals the title object in order to give it back to its rightful owners.

Daniel Alarcon's book is full of multi-cultural characters "on their way to somewhere else."

'Expanding the Hyphen' in 'War by Candlelight'

Martha Woodroof

Daniel Alarcon was born in Peru and raised in Alabama. His fiction reflects the cross pollination of those two cultures which he says is just a small part of a larger global trend of mobility and intermixing. His first book of stories in called War by Candlelight. Martha Woodroof of NPR station WMRA reports.

Business

Wanted: The Next 'Da Vinci Code'

Martha Woodroof

The Da Vinci Code has been out for more that two years, and it still remains on bestseller lists. The popularity of Dan Brown's novel that combines science, religion, history and suspense has publishers jumping at the opportunity to spot the next literary sensation.