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Most of us, when we think of Victorian London, think of the work of Charles Dickens. Historian Judith Flanders' uses Dickens' words to paint a vivid portrait of a vibrant but troubled city.

A new biography by Meryle Secrest looks at the troubled life of designer Elsa Schiaparelli — renowned as the Queen of Fashion, a glamorous innovator whose career never recovered from World War II.

A nearly century-old Sidaway Bridge closed decades ago and effectively segregated two Cleveland neighborhoods. The bridge recently received landmark status, and some community members want to see it restored and reopened.

Italian professor Joseph Luzzi's new memoir digs into the divisions in Italian society: north and south, poor and rich, and the question of his own complicated identity as an Italian American.

Twenty years ago, Diana Gabaldon's time-travel epic Outlander shot to the top of the best-seller lists — and stayed there. NPR's Karen Grigsby Bates digs into the enduring potency of Gabaldon's magic.

The creator of Buffy and the Avengers movie is immensely talented, and critic Bob Mondello says Amy Pascale's belligerently upbeat biography might have benefited from his eye for detail and nuance.

Jess Row's provocative Your Face in Mine uses the rhetoric of transgender experience to imagine a world where race can be changed; reviewer Amal El-Mohtar calls it a grating meditation on white guilt.

At Dominican Convent High School in Zimbabwe, then-16-year old writer Irene Sabatini and her classmates swooned over the opulence, sex and strength portrayed by the women in Shirley Conran's Lace.

Tom Rob Smith's latest thriller is based on his own frightening real-life experience with his mother's mental illness. Smith says he hopes readers will take away something positive from his story.

Weekend Edition is asking authors to recommend some great reads; the conversations kick off with Clever Girl author Tessa Hadley, who touts Irish novelist Dierdre Madden's Time Present and Time Past.