Category: DailyShorts

Authors Joshua Prager and Leni Zumas each explore the real world implications of abortion politics, through fiction and non-fiction. First, in a conversation with Michel Martin, Prager talks through his book The Family Roe: An American Story, centered on the woman who was the baby at the center of the landmark Roe v. Wade trial. Then Leni Zumas and Scott Simon discuss Zumas' novel Red Clocks, set in a time where fetal personhood legislation has outlawed not only abortion, but also in-vitro fertilization.

Copyright is what protects creators from having someone copy and make money off of their work without compensation. However, there are some things like directories or maps which have information that can be difficult to copyright. It’s just presenting information or data which exists out in the real world. Such creators of maps and directories have found unique ways around this problem. Learn more about copyright traps, aka Mountweazels, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

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If these walls could talk... what might they say to the chairs? In Ruth Ozeki's novel The Book of Form and Emptiness, 13-year-old Benny Oh starts hearing things talk to him after the loss of his father. As he navigates his grief, it's his conversations with books that guide him through.

On May 19, 1946, André René Roussimoff was born into the world in Coulommiers, France. At birth, he weighed 13 pounds or 6 kilograms...and from there, he only got bigger. He eventually topped out at 7 feet, four inches tall, weighed 520 pounds, and became a worldwide phenomenon as a professional wrestler and actor. He is one of the few humans to whom the adjective “legendary” can truly be ascribed. Today people still speak of his incredible feats in awe.

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You've likely heard the names of Ruby Bridges, Jackie Robinson and Thurgood Marshall — the first African Americans to desegregate public schools, baseball and the Supreme Court. But do you know the names of Kenny Washington, Woody Strode, Marion Motley or Bill Willis? Unless you're a football fan, you likely haven't. And that's what Keyshawn Johnson is trying to rectify in his book The Forgotten First, the story of the men who helped break the NFL's color barrier. NPR's A Martinez sat down with Johnson to discuss those four men, and the legacy they left behind.

If you think of Spain as the country on the Iberian Peninsula which is sandwiched between France and Portugal, you are not wrong, but you are also not totally right. There is also a significant part of the country which is located in the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Morocco: The Canary Islands. Here you will find things that you aren’t going to find in mainland Spain or even the rest of Europe. Learn more about the Canary Islands on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

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Following the success of his previous novel All the Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr's latest book is an ambitious epic about the power and immortality of stories. He discusses it all with NPR's Scott Simon here. If you're in the market for a novel written by someone who genuinely loves books, this is the pick for you.