Barrie Hardymon
Barrie Hardymon is the Senior Editor at NPR's Weekend Edition, and the lead editor for books. You can hear her on the radio talking everything from Middlemarch to middle grade novels, and she's also a frequent panelist on NPR's podcasts It's Been A Minute and Pop Culture Happy Hour. She went to Juilliard to study viola, ended up a cashier at the Strand, and finally got a degree from Johns Hopkins' Writing Seminars which qualified her solely for work in public radio. She lives and reads in Washington, DC.
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The novelist, who died last week at 91, was often slammed by critics as a frivolous sex-and-shopping writer. But her luxuries were meticulously researched and her sex scenes gloriously shameless.
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Judith Viorst's new collection of poetry is called Nearing 90, though she's quick to note she's only "a girl of 88." She's still writing, looking forward to grandchildren graduation, and feeling good.
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It's hard to remember a world before Harry Potter. But it's been 20 years since readers in the U.S. were first introduced to the boy wizard, whose story has captivated audiences since.
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The election in southwest Pennsylvania on March 13 is being closely watched by Democrats and Republicans looking for early clues about how Americans will vote in the midterm elections.
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Leila Slimani's breakout novel, inspired by true stories of killer caregivers, chronicles the complex relationship between a mother and her babysitter.
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On the eve of Outlander's third season, Pop Culture Happy Hour has thoughts on the Starz drama and its depictions of sex, intimacy and time travel.
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Nevermind that she didn't like kids all that much — Brown wrote books they adored. One of her previously unpublished picture books has just come out, as has a new biography of this brave, bold author.
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Carrie Fisher's well known for her acting and comedy. NPR's Ailsa Chang talks with Weekend Edition books editor Barrie Hardymon about why we should remember Fisher as not just a Hollywood star.
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One of the profound pleasures of reading to children, says Barrie Hardymon, is the thrill of sharing a story's secrets for the first time.
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Rowling studied real criminal case studies to write the latest in the Cormoran Strike mystery series — "It was horrible," she says. But writing under a pseudonym remains "a very private pleasure."