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Thor Hanson's new book looks at the evolutionary significance of feathers in birds. Hanson tells Fresh Air that he's amazed by birds' magnitude of feathers, how feathers grow and how they're the "most efficient insulation known."

India's newest boom town is Hyderabad, a hub for multinational high tech and pharmaceutical companies. But Hyderabad is also known for its enormous, prehistoric granite boulders, which are being jeopardized by economic development.

Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is scheduled to arrive in Pakistan Monday after years in exile. But he will receive less than a warm welcome from the country's current military ruler, President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, who has ordered the arrest of hundreds of his supporters.

Just weeks after New York Times correspondent Anthony Shadid died in Syria, his latest book has been released. House of Stone tells of the year he spent restoring a family home in Lebanon.

Climate change is exaggerating the normal swings in weather. For the American Southwest, that means more intense waves of heat, drought and fire that could wipe out trees that have stood for centuries. It's already revamping the ecology of the landscape.

Just how do trees die? It seems like a simple question, but the answer still eludes scientists. And understanding forest ecology is increasingly important as the effects of climate change begin to take root.

The Firm was the book that turned John Grisham into a writing superstar. Now three decades later, he's returned to the characters that made him, with his follow up book The Exchange.

The term "Rube Goldberg machine" has become shorthand for a convoluted contraption made up of a series of chain reactions. But Goldberg was also a real person, whose ideas for whimsical devices have captivated imaginations for decades.

Anya von Bremzen's new memoir is a delicious narrative of memory and cuisine in 20th century Soviet Union. She writes about her family's own history and contemplates the nation's "complicated, even tortured, relationship with food."

Patrick Flanery's taut new novel, Fallen Land, delves into the housing crisis, creeping corporate surveillance and a "crisis of neighborliness" in American life. The backdrop: a half-built and crumbling subdivision outside of an unnamed American city.