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On Oct. 11, 2001, more than 5,000 Kansans recorded their daily activities and thoughts as part of a project to preserve the history of their communities. Morning Edition continues its Prairie Diaries series with the story of Oretha Ruetti, who lives on her own -- with help from her community -- despite advancing years. Read her diary and others in the series.

- The day that Dan Robb's father went into his young son's bedroom and told him that he'd be leaving, for good, was a wrenching moment for the entire family. In this radio piece, Robb re-calls that fateful day in conversations with both of his parents. 'Dad's Moving Out' was produced by Jay Allison.

Desperate Networks, a new book exploring the inner workings of the television industry, follows the sagas of top executives at the major networks through a traditional fall season. New York Times reporter Bill Carter describes the highs — the hit show Desperate Housewives, for example — to the lows, which is almost everything else on TV. The Hollywood Reporter television critic Andrew Wallenstein has a review.

Architects in Holland are showing the rest of the world a way of turning adversity into opportunity. Instead of building around rising waters, they ask, why not build on water? Floating houses, gardens, even villages are the future vision of some Dutch planners.

Darkly funny, suspenseful and cunningly plotted, Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl will be published June 5. In this exclusive selection from the book's opening, we meet Nick and Amy, the seemingly perfect couple whose alternating chapters soon reveal them to be unreliable narrators — and spouses.

Alfred Matthew Yankovic is the king of pop parody. You know him better as "Weird Al." NPR's Steve Inskeep caught up with the 43-year-old funny man on tour to promote his latest CD, Poodle Hat.

Mat Johnson's Pym is a modern-day sequel to Edgar Allan Poe's only novel. Poe's characters discover an island populated only by blacks. Johnson's characters set off to the South Pole to find this island but uncover something entirely different.

Author Michael Farquhar has a new book of mini biographies called A Treasury of Foolishly Forgotten Americans. These are people whom, for some reason, official history has overlooked — among others, a swashbuckling female pirate and a "DO-take-prisoners" World War II Marine.

The immigration service today releases more than 140 draft questions for a new citizenship test. The questions will be given to new citizenship applicants in the the exam's civics portion, beginning in January. The government, which hopes to make the test more meaningful, has been working for several years to redesign the test.

Everything you wanted to know about bug sex (but didn't bother to ask) is explained in a new book. Insect expert Marlene Zuk describes how ants learn, why some crickets don't chirp and how various bugs mate in Sex on Six Legs: Lessons on Life, Love and Language from the Insect World.

Composer Burton Lane died Sunday at age 84. He had careers on Broadway and in Hollywood. He's best known for the scores of Finian's Rainbow and On a Clear Day You Can See Forever. He wrote the music to songs with lyrics by Ira Gershwin, Alan Jay Lerner, Frank Loesser and Yip Harburg. His songs were performed by many stars. We hear a few of his tunes and hear clips from an interview done by Terry Gross in 1990.

New solo work from Daniel Lanois; Reggae meets country through Willie Nelson; Malian musical legends Touré and Diabaté; A long-awaited new CD from Son Volt and more.