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Pirates, pokers and alleged demonic origins — the history of rum is filled with raucousness and rebellion. To celebrate National Rum Day, we bring you tales from this drink's past, including its laudable origins as a food waste solution.

R.J. Palacio explores the life of 10-year-old Auggie Pullman, a tough, sweet kid who was born with a serious facial deformity. He wants a normal life, but adults and children alike turn their eyes away at the sight of him. Join NPR's Backseat Book Club as we read a novel about cruelty and kindness.

Bridget Lancaster and Jack Bishop advise using ripe fruit, extra-firm tofu and poking your hamburgers so they don't puff up like tennis balls.

David Gilbert's new novel & Sons chronicles the life of a Salinger-like writer and, yes, his troubled sons, against the backdrop of the New York literary world. Reviewer Mary Pols says the book is "seductive and ripe with both comedy and heartbreak."

When the Pilgrim family first arrived in Alaska, they looked to be from another century. They didn't use calendar months, they called their father "Lord," and they knew how to live in the wild. But, as Tom Kizzia writes in Pilgrim's Wilderness, that rugged facade helped conceal a history of abuse.

Francis Scott Key wrote the words to the ballad after witnessing the Battle for Baltimore in 1814. According to author Steve Vogel, after it was published, Key's composition took the country by storm. But it didn't become the national anthem until more than 100 years later.

Mark Leibovich, author of a just-published book about the ickiness of Washington, makes a case for why people should care.

This is the second mystery in Sara Gran's series featuring 40-ish bad-girl detective Claire DeWitt. Critic Maureen Corrigan says that reading a noir novel written by a Brooklyn-born author gave her a rush of private-eye, patriotic pride.

Read an exclusive excerpt of David Rakoff's last novel, Love, Dishonor, Marry, Die, Cherish, Perish, a set of humane, witty interlocking vignettes in verse that illustrate the scope of the 20th century, from 1920s Chicago meatpackers to dissatisfied 1980s yuppies.

Cathleen Schine's new novel follows a young boy and his older half-sister, making a life for themselves in Greenwich Village. Reviewer Heller McAlpin says Fin & Lady is entertaining and moving.