The Blitz, romance, and time-traveling fascists

This week on Shortwave, the internet is obsessed with inflammation. And yeah, it is true. Inflammation is at the heart of nearly every disease in the body. But it's also the body's natural response to danger. So who really needs to be worried about it?

Find out on Shortwave, the science podcast from NPR. This is Fresh Air. I'm Terry Gross. Our book critic Maureen Carrigan is a fan of British writer Francis Spufford's novels. So is our executive producer, Sam Brigger.

And they aren't alone. Spufford books have won the Costa Book Award, the Ondaji Prize, and have been longlisted for the Booker Prize. Sam read Spufford's new novel called Nonsuch, and like that one too. Here's the interview Sam just recorded with Francis Spufford. Two of my most enjoyable reading experiences over the last ten years were reading Cahokia Jazz, a 1920s noir crime novel set in an alternate American history where a sovereign majority indigenous nation state thrives in the middle of the United States, and Golden Hill, a novel set in eighteenth century New York.

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