The themes among NPR’s author interviews

Of course, the primary theme with author interviews tends to be that a book is either about to come out or has recently come out.

But we found a few other common threads in NPR’s author interviews this week.

One of them was the science of the brain, and how it does — and sometimes does not — recognize its surroundings as familiar.

Listen to science journalist Sadie Dingfelder talk about her new book, Do I Know You?: A Faceblind Reporter's Journey into the Science of Sight, Memory, and Imagination, on NPR's Short Wave podcast, and also to cognitive neuroscientist Tali Sharot discuss the book she co-wrote, Look Again: The Power of Noticing What Was Always There, on NPR's Life Kit podcast.

The other theme was, perhaps less surprising given that it's June, LGBTQ+ characters in fiction for younger readers.

NPR interviewed evangelical Christian writer Jonathan Merritt about his new children's book, My Guncle and Me, and its podcast Code Switch profiled author Mike Curato and his frequently banned book Flamer as the first installment of a series going deeper into the most targeted books in today's America.