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The sci-fi legend is America's national curmudgeon — and his rage, humor and a little sadness are all on display in a new collection of short pieces, interspersed with thoughts about his 2014 stroke.

Bill Bryson follows up his classic travelogue Notes From A Small Island 20 years later — older, grayer, and definitely crankier. It's a charming trip, though marred by a little too much grumpiness.

What price love? In Lara, Anna Pasternak chronicles her famous great-uncle Boris's relationship with his mistress, Olga Ivinskaya — whose connection with the author landed her in the gulags.

Novelist Alan Hollinghurst's latest chronicles changing attitudes towards homosexuality in Britain through the stories of a closeted gay man — and later, his son — in the decades after World War II.

In the 1920s, Edith Thompson was executed along with her lover, who was found guilty of murdering her husband. Laura Thompson looks at how social conventions may have lead to an unjust outcome.

Madeleine Brand speaks with Washington Post homeland security correspondent Spencer Hsu about Friday's U.S. Senate committee hearing on the Federal Emergency Management Agency's response to the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. Former FEMA director Michael Brown defended his own actions and laid much of the blame for the slow federal response on the Department of Homeland Security.

Heavy rains have swamped many parts of New England. Downtown Peabody, Mass., is flooded; business owners can't get in to assess the damage, and dozens of residents have been evacuated to the local high school. The area's flooding is the worst since the 1930s.

Republican presidential hopeful John McCain called for a temporary lifting of federal fuel taxes in order to cut gas prices during the busy summer driving season. "The effect will be an immediate economic stimulus" for families and businesses alike, McCain says.

Thousands of autoworkers are on picket lines a day after the United Auto Workers union begins a strike against General Motors. The union is taking a bold gamble. A lengthy strike could cost a weakened GM billions.

Intelligence officials told the Senate Homeland Security committee Monday that the U.S. is still at high risk of terrorist attacks. Some aspects of security have been improved, they say, but not enough to justify complacency.