GEORGE SAUNDERS

Good morning, Chicago. Here are some of the top stories you need to know to start your day.

George Saunders has always been a moralist. The intense debate over democracy and its threats has further exposed that in his work.

Anticipation has been growing all year for one of the fall’s likeliest bestsellers, Colleen Hoover’s “It Starts With Us.”.

Our weekly roundup of new movies to watch from home.

This week’s new entertainment releases include an album of guided meditation by Alanis Morissette, a Jennifer Lopez documentary leading up to her halftime performance at the Super Bowl in 2020 and a new “Father of the Bride” remake starring Andy Garcia and Gloria Estefan.

South African writer Damon Galgut has won the prestigious Booker Prize for fiction with his story of racism and reckoning “The Promise.”.

The actor and author has a new book, Where the Deer and the Antelope Play. He talks with NPR's Scott Simon about why walking in the woods makes him feel better and how to experience nature in a city.

Honest-to-God advice on how to enjoy nature, from an actor-comedian-author-canoe-builder who grew up on a farm and takes rock stars rafting

What happens when the experience of celebrity becomes universal?

This combination photo shows the cover of "Afterparties," left, and a portrait of author Anthony Veasna So. The author of the highly anticipated debut story collection to be published in August, has died. (Chris Sackes, right, and Ecco via AP)NEW YORK – The author of a highly anticipated debut story collection has died. Anthony Veasna So was 28. “The mind-frying hilarity of Anthony Veasna So’s first book of fiction settles him as the genius of social satire our age needs now more than ever," Karr wrote in a blurb for the book.

LONDON – Scottish writer Douglas Stuart won the Booker Prize for fiction Thursday for “Shuggie Bain,” the story of a boy’s turbulent coming of age in hardscrabble 1980s Glasgow. Stuart, 44, won the prestigious 50,000 pound ($66,000) award for his first published novel, the product of a decade of work. Stuart dedicated the book to own mother, who died when he was 16. Though there have been many British winners of the Booker Prize, most of them English, Stuart is the first Scottish victor since James Kelman took the 1994 prize with “How Late it Was, How Late” — a book Stuart has called an inspiration. Mantel won the Booker for both its predecessors, “Wolf Hall” and “Bring up the Bodies,” and had been widely tipped for the hat trick.

FILE - In this July 22, 2020, file photo, Zimbabwean writer Tsitsi Dangarembga demonstrates for the release of Zimbabwe Journalist Hopewell Chin'ono in Harare. Dangarembga who was arrested during anti-government protests is among six finalists announced Tuesday, Sept, 15, 2020 for the Booker Prize for fiction. (AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi, File)LONDON – A Zimbabwean writer who was arrested during anti-government protests is among six finalists announced Tuesday on a diverse list of contenders for the prestigious Booker Prize for fiction. Founded in 1969, the prize is open to English-language authors from around the world, but until 2014 only British, Irish and Commonwealth writers were eligible. Mantel won the Booker for both its predecessors, “Wolf Hall” and “Bring up the Bodies” and had been widely tipped for a third victory.