by David Lipsky 

Afterword

David was six feet two, and on a good day he weighed two hundred pounds. He had dark eyes, soft voice, caveman chin, a lovely, peak- lipped mouth that was his best feature. He walked with an ex-athlete’s saunter—a roll from the heels, as if any physical thing was a pleasure. He wrote with eyes and a voice that seemed to be a condensed form of everyone’s lives—it was the stuff you semi thought, the background action you blinked through at supermarkets and commutes—and readers curled up in the nooks and clearings of his style. His life was a map that ends at the wrong destination. He was an A student through high school, he played football, he played tennis, he wrote a philosophy thesis and a novel before he graduated from Amherst, he went to writing school, published the novel, made a city of squalling, bruising, kneecapping editors and writers fall moony- eyed in love with him. He published a thousand- page novel, received the only award you get in the nation for being a genius, wrote essays providing the best feel anywhere of what it means to be alive now, accepted a special chair to teach writing at a college in California, married, published another book, and hanged himself at age forty- six.

Immortality has always been a dream of humanity, though in movies and books, we are often told that our mortality is somehow integral to the human experience. If you could live longer – much, much longer than our expected 79 years — would you want to?  Pulitzer Prize-winning science writer Jonathan Weiner examines the science of longevity in his new book, Long for This World: The Strange Science of Immortality.

Planning a summer vacation? We’re making a summer reading list to help you pick some really good books to delve into during your free time. Last week we spoke to Hilary Thayer Hamman, the author of "Anthropology of an American Girl." We also asked you about what’s on your reading list for this summer. Calypso, from Oklahoma, wrote in to our website with his suggestion: A romance/mystery novel called "Paper Towns" by John Greene. A good thriller always delivers, too, and author Justin Cronin’s new book "The Passage," is getting a lot of attention for its apocalyptic twist on the vampire theme.

Most people know Michael Chabon as the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of the “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay.”

And most people know his wife Ayelet Waldman as the controversial essayist who once ruffled feathers by claiming she was more in love with her husband than her kids.

But behind Chabon and Waldman’s high profile writing careers is a very real family, consisting of two parents, four kids, and – as Ayelet writes in her book, “Bad Mother ” - her own mental illness.

Fifty years ago this summer, Harper Lee’s only book “To Kill a Mockingbird,” was published. Popular with critics and readers from the beginning, it won the Pulitzer Prize in 1961 and a year later was adapted for film, with Gregory Peck starring as Atticus Finch, and Mary Badham as his daughter, 'Scout.'

Today, in honor of To Kill a Mockingbird’s anniversary, we talk with Mary Badham, about her Oscar-nominated role in the film.

What book are you taking to the beach? We kicked off our summer reading series with an interview with "Anthropology of an American Girl" author, Hilary Thayer Hamann, and we've been asking for your reading suggestions. The series will keep going all summer, so come back to add books you love to the list, and take suggestions from other listeners.

Hilary Thayer Hamann earned a cult following after she self-published her debut novel, "Anthropology of an American Girl," in 2003. The book did so well that she submitted it to editors in the mainstream publishing world four years later. Speigel & Grau significantly edited and re-published the 600-page book this spring and the book has been getting rave reviews ever since.

Last Friday, Lauren Mechling and Laura Moser began an unusual experiment. They published the first three chapters of their young adult vampire novel “My Darklyng” on slate.com. Every Friday for the rest of the summer, they’ll be publishing three more chapters.

Of course, for anyone familiar with the history of serialized novels, none of this is particularly newsworthy. But there is something unique about “My Darklyng” that could pave a new way for novels and technology to play off each other in the near future: Specifically, each character in the story has her own online life outside of the novel – including Facebook pages with photos, twitter feeds, Wikipedia entries, and videos posted on Youtube.

What do Johnny Mathis, Tennessee Williams, a stripper named Zorro, Manson girl Leslie Van Houten and a couple of amateur porn directors have in common? Renowned filmmaker John Waters counts them all among his role models.

You probably have watched comedian Samantha Bee as a correspondent on "The Daily Show" for several years now, but did you know that she was an only child of divorced parents? That she's a Canadian with two children and another on the way? That she was introduced to sex at the tender age of 7? Oh, and she once worked in a penis clinic too.  

That unorthodox childhood and life certainly inform Bee's comedy, and has now served as material for her new memoir, I Know I Am, But What Are You?.

This week, thousands of book industry retailers, agents, authors, and hangers-on have been gathering in New York for the annual BookExpo America conference.

Patrik Henry Bass, senior editor of Essence magazine, is among those attending the show. And what he’s noticed is that the enormous popularity of graphic novels is continuing to grow even bigger.

He explains why graphic novels are so huge right now, and walks us through some of his favorite titles from the past year.

As Elena Kagan prepares for her confirmation hearings, we are wondering: What should she read? Essence Magazine senior editor Patrik Henry Bass came up with some suggested reading for the nominee as she awaits her confirmation hearings.

Do you have recommended reading for her? Share your suggested book list in the comments.

Here's Patrik's list:

• "The Eyes of Willie McGee: A Tragedy of Race, Sex and Secrets in the Jim Crow South" by Alex Heard
• "Blue Orchard" by Jackson Taylor
• "Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet" by Bill McKibben

She's adored by millions for her teenage roles in movies like “Sixteen Candles,” but today, Molly Ringwald has grown up. She is both an on-screen and off-screen mom. She stars in ABC Family’s “Secret Life of the American Teenager.” She has three kids. And on top of that, she's written a new book that’s part autobiography, part beauty guide and part mommy handbook called “Getting the Pretty Back.”

In literature, the African-American family has changed and morphed over the years. From the churchgoing family of James Baldwin's "Go Tell It On The Mountain" to the rural female-led household of Toni Morrison's "Beloved" to the inner city of Sapphire's "Push."  But now, the black American family is being rewritten all over again in a totally new way. We take a look at three upcoming books about family written by black men.

Most people know Cherie Currie as the lead singer of the '70s all-girl rock band The Runaways, but it turns out that she's had at least a half a dozen other strange and dazzling careers since then, including writer, retail clerk and chainsaw artist.

When you hear the word "genius," you might think of Einstein, Mozart, or Da Vinci. But how they became geniuses is the subject of debate. Where they born that way? Or does it come from sheer tenacity? 

We begin a week-long conversation about genius and how any of us can get that way. David Shenk, author of "The Genius in All of Us: Why Everything You've Been Told about Genetics, Talent, and IQ is Wrong," tells us about some surprising research about what it takes to, as he puts it, "get good at stuff." Turns out it's not as hard as you might think.

J.D. Salinger, author of "The Catcher in the Rye," died yesterday at age 91. The critically acclaimed novel about teenage angst shocked and inspired the world of literature for decades, while its author refused interviews and eventually withdrew to a small town in New Hampshire.

Every seven days, the editors of The Week put their stamp on the news with their "Good Week/Bad Week" feature. It was a good week for James Cameron, whose film broke the world box office record.  It was a bad week for fans of reading in Laredo, Texas. The city's only bookstore closed down.

We speak with best-selling author Elizabeth Gilbert about her latest book, "Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage." To write the book, she had to wrestle with the fact that her first, wildly successful memoir, "Eat, Pray, Love," had been based on the premise of getting over a bad marriage and swearing off the institution forever, while her second memoir details her reluctant acceptance of marriage after all.

Click through for an excerpt of Gilbert's new memoir.

With days upon days of holiday cooking ahead of us, it's the time of year when you're most likely to consult a cookbook ... or give one to your mom. Julia Moskin, New York Times food writer, and Adam Gopnik, staff writer for The New Yorker, join us for our very own cookbook roundup. Gopnik also examines the larger purpose of the cookbook in the age of the internet.