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Many of us see weeds as a pest, but nature writer Richard Mabey prefers to think of them as "vegetable guerrillas" and "forest outlaws." Mabey stands up for the incredibly adaptable and disreputable plants in his new book, Weeds.

This year, Hollywood will release 28 movie sequels — more than any other year — and while all these Part 2s, 3s and 4s may be good for the industry's bottom line, it's making NPR movie critic Bob Mondello's job tricky.

Ever wonder why supermarket tomatoes taste like nothing? Food writer Barry Estabrook's new book traces the troubled history of the modern commercial tomato.

El Niño is warming up the water in the Pacific Ocean. That extra heat affects the whole planet, and has helped drive record-breaking hot weather.

Author George R. R. Martin's latest epic fantasy, A Dance With Dragons, is finally in bookstores after a six-year delay. Now, fans of his work can finally find out whether their favorite characters will survive — not always a given in Martin's work.

Everyone has a story to tell, but memoir writer Marion Roach Smith says making those stories interesting and readable is harder than it looks. She gives her dos and don'ts for memoir writing in The Memoir Project.

Fifty years ago this October, Joseph Heller first published his American classic, Catch-22. Heller's friend and fellow writer Christopher Buckley reflects on the novel's impact in the introduction to its 50th-anniversary edition.

How does the Massachusetts health care plan passed under Gov. Mitt Romney stack up against the federal plan signed by President Obama? Five ways "Romneycare" and "Obamacare" are similar — and five key differences.

Brian McGackin says his new collection of poetry, Broetry, is for people who don't like poetry: dudes. The book draws inspiration from writers not necessarily known as broets: Robert Frost, who crafted odes to baseball, and Shakespeare, who was "just writing about chicks."

Changes to the Free and Reduced-Price Lunch program undermine a long-used measurement for child poverty.