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For two years, the author lived in a Laotian hospital, in an apartment above the operating room. His experiences there inspired characters — including a country coroner — for the books he would later write.

The last deep pit coal mine in northern England closes next month, marking the death of an industry that has fueled area towns for decades. Miners are angry the government didn't do more to help them.

Pilot Chesley Sullenberger's wild ride started this year when he landed a US Airways jet plop-solid perfect onto the icy surface of the Hudson River on Jan. 15, saving all 155 passengers on board. He's a hero to the nation, but Sullenberger says his story is really more about a nation in need of a hero.

Ten years ago Friday, 43 drivers lined up to race NASCAR's Daytona 500. One of them was Dale Earnhardt, who died in a crash in the last lap. Fellow racer Michael Waltrip, who won that race, details the day's events in a new book: In the Blink of an Eye: Dale, Daytona, and the Day that Changed Everything.

Jane's Fame, Claire Harman's book about the author of Emma and Sense and Sensibility, reveals the gap between her legacy — modest, indifferent to fame and devoted to her characters — and her ambition.

Dinaw Mengestu's How to Read the Air is an unsentimental meditation on the immigrant experience and the illusory idea of asylum. With lyrical prose, he reassesses the by-your-bootstraps mythology associated with American mobility.

The summer sun may be shining, but vampires don't seem to be going anywhere. NPR's Margot Adler has read more than 100 vampire books this year, and gives a heads-up on two bloodsucking books expected to be summer blockbusters: Christopher Farnsworth's Blood Oath and Justin Cronin's The Passage.

Thriller writer Richard North Patterson knows about engrossing political dramas — he served as the SEC liaison to the Watergate special prosecutor. As his favorite thriller, he recommends Allen Drury's Pulitzer Prize-winning Advise and Consent, a political novel that still rings true after 50 years.

General Motors' former leadership was "appalling" and the company had no idea how much cash it had on hand, the Obama administration's former "car czar" says. In his new book, Steven Rattner offers an insider's perspective on the government's ultimately successful efforts to rescue GM and Chrysler from failure.

In their seven-year love affair with Interstate 95, Stan Posner and Sandra Phillips-Posner have found the best Polish sausage, Berger cookies and a battleship you can spend the night on.