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NPR Topics: Books

• The Paradox Of 'Lady Matador's Hotel'
  Alan Cheuse reviews The Lady Matador's Hotel by Cristina Garcia. The novel weaves the stories of six residents of a hotel in an unnamed Central American capital. One of the guests is a Japanese Mexican-American matadora in town for a bullfight.
  
  
• Arianna Huffington Sees A 'Third World America'
  When Arianna Huffington immigrated to the United States in 1980, she knew there was no place she'd rather live. Three decades later, she says that's still true -- but that America has gone astray.  Huffington discusses her new book, Third World America, and her plan to rescue the middle class.
  
  
• Fresh Air Remembers Comedian Robert Schimmel
  The 60-year-old comedian, who often joked about his own life in his raunchy stand-up routines, died Friday from injuries suffered in a car accident. Fresh Air remembers Schimmel with highlights from a 2008 interview in which he discusses his memoir Cancer On $5 A Day.
  
  
• 'Skippy Dies' In Dublin: A Funny Flashback Follows
  The titular event happens just a few pages into Paul Murray's novel; the rest of the story is an extended flashback, following the doomed Skippy, his geeky roommate and their cadre of bored, irreverent friends as they tease girls, dodge bullies and attend Catholic school in a rundown Dublin neighborhood.
  
  
• Modern Lessons From Hillel
  Not much is known about the life of the rabbi and Talmudic scholar Hillel, who lived 2,000 years ago, but his teachings have shaped Judaism. Rabbi Joseph Telushkin's forthcoming book Hillel: If Not Now, When? argues that Hillel has as much to teach the 21 Century as he did his own.
  
  

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