In this delightful memoir, the book critic for NPR's Fresh Air reflects on her life as a professional reader. Maureen Corrigan takes us from her unpretentious girlhood in working-class Queens, to her bemused years in an Ivy League Ph.D. program, from the whirl of falling in love and marrying (a fellow bookworm, of course), to the ordeal of adopting a baby overseas, always with a book at her side. Along the way, she reveals which books and authors have shaped her own life--from classic works of English literature to hard-boiled detective novels, and everything in between. And in her...

Born Elizabeth Jane Cochran, Nellie Bly was one of the first and best female journalists in America and quickly became a national phenomenon in the late 1800s, with a board game based on her adventures and merchandise inspired by the clothes she wore. Bly gained fame for being the first "girl stunt reporter," writing stories that no one at the time thought a woman could or should write, including an expose of patient treatment at an insane asylum and a travelogue from her record-breaking race around the world...

It's a revered classic and a rite of passage in the reading lives of millions. But how well do we really know The Great Gatsby? As "Fresh Air" book critic Maureen Corrigan points out, many of us first read Fitzgerald's masterpiece when we were too young to comprehend its power.

Offering a fresh perspective on Gatsby, SO WE READ ON takes readers into archives, high school classrooms, and onto the Long Island...