Explosive Eighteen is the 18th in the best-selling series of crime novels featuring Jersey girl Stephanie Plum. Author Janet Evanovich discusses the inspiration for her heroine and how she eavesdrops for ideas.

The GOP presidential hopefuls are airing ads in nearly all of the early voting states. NPR's Ken Rudin, political ad expert Ken Goldstein and Robert Mann, author of Daisy Petals and Mushroom Clouds: LBJ, Barry Goldwater, and the Ad that Changed American Politics talk about ads past and present.

Here's a little Christmas secret: Dusting desserts with powdered sugar makes them look more expensive. Chef Nigella Lawson talks with NPR's Steve Inskeep about her tricks for economical holiday hosting.

Israel's first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion is a mythic figure. In Ben-Gurion: A Political Life, Israeli President Shimon Peres talks about his mentor.

Teresa Urrea was a real Mexican saint who was exiled to the U.S. 'Queen of America' tells the fictional story of her rise to pop star status and her desperate attempt to stop the machine of stardom.

The Artist of Disappearance contains three novellas set in modern India. Anita Desai's somber stories read like three symphonic movements in a minor key. Desai talks with NPR's Scott Simon about her writing, and about working with her daughter, novelist Kiran Desai.

What happens next in Pride and Prejudice? Well, if you ask 91-year-old British mystery writer P.D. James, it's a ghastly murder in the Pemberley woodlands. James was surprised she wanted to write a sequel: "I had never thought that I would ever want to use somebody else's characters," she says.