Petra Mayer
Petra Mayer (she/her) is an editor (and the resident nerd) at NPR Books, focusing on fiction, and particularly genre fiction. She brings to the job passion, speed-reading skills, and a truly impressive collection of Doctor Who doodads. You can also hear her on the air and on the occasional episode of Pop Culture Happy Hour.
Previously, she was an associate producer and director for All Things Considered on the weekends. She handled all of the show's books coverage, and she was also the person to ask if you wanted to know how much snow falls outside NPR's Washington headquarters on a Saturday, how to belly dance, or what pro wrestling looks like up close and personal.
Mayer originally came to NPR as an engineering assistant in 1994, while still attending Amherst College. After three years spending summers honing her soldering skills in the maintenance shop, she made the jump to Boston's WBUR as a newswriter in 1997. Mayer returned to NPR in 2000 after a roundabout journey that included a master's degree in journalism from Columbia University and a two-year stint as an audio archivist and producer at the Prague headquarters of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. She still knows how to solder.
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The longlist nominees for this year's National Book Awards are being announced over the course of the next few days — we'll have them all right here in a continuously updated post. -
Chuck Close, who was known for his giant photorealist portraits of friends and colleagues in the art world, has died at the age of 81. Late in life, Close faced accusations of sexual harassment.
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Way back in 2011, we polled our readers about their favorite science fiction and fantasy books and made a list of their 100 favorites. There were some notable omissions. It's time to fix that.
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Earlier in the summer, we asked you to vote for your favorite science fiction and fantasy reads of the past decade — so here are 50 fabulous reads, curated by our expert judges and you, the readers.
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No costumed crowds are thronging the streets of San Diego this weekend: For the second year in a row, Comic-Con is online only. But organizers are hoping for a small in-person show in November.
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This month brings a great selection of books, from a reimagining of King Arthur to a study of loneliness that might be just what you need as you start to recover from pandemic-induced isolation.
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Our famous Summer Reader Poll is back! It's been 10 years since our original sci-fi and fantasy poll, and the field has changed so much since then — so tell us about your favorite new reads!
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This year we had kids and caregivers in mind when we chose the genre for our summer poll. So here are 100 favorite kids' books, picked by readers and expert judges, to while away the hours at home.
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In Zen Cho's new novel, a young woman begins to hear a voice in her head: It's the dead, estranged grandmother she never knew. Wronged in life, the grandmother wants revenge after death.
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Erdrich's novel — about a Chippewa tribal elder working as a night watchman while battling government efforts to the tribe's treaties and land ownership rights — was based on her own grandfather.
