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In 1839, Great Britain and Russia were playing the world map like a chessboard — and for no reason other than geography, Afghanistan got caught in the middle. In Return of a King, historian William Dalrymple tells the story of Britain's calamitous invasion.

After a meteoric rise, GOP presidential candidate Michele Bachmann is now polling in the single digits. But she's still plowing ahead with her campaign, and this week she came out with a memoir. The Minnesota congresswoman talks with co-host Steve Inskeep about Core of Conviction and aiming to win the nomination.

Exchanges must be up and running by at the start of 2014, although states must prove a year earlier that they will be ready to go. The federal government will establish exchanges for states that can't or won't do so themselves.

In The Price of Inequality, Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz argues that widely unequal societies don't function effectively or have stable economies. Even the rich will pay a steep price if economic inequalities continue to worsen, he says.

This year has seen a lot of "quirky" kids' music, wherein the sweet-voiced folkies of the past were replaced by growling rocker moms and clear, intimate harmonies. The quality was high this year, with albums rooted in reggae, electronica, folk and rock aimed at young ears.

A Thomson Reuters analysis of what the privately insured spend on health care shows that it's wrong to presume that a region with high Medicare spending also has a cost problem from private insurance.

The London 2012 Olympics were billed as the Social Games, with fans following along on Twitter, Facebook and other services. But it might be remembered as "The Crying Games," for the swelling of emotions many Britons experienced. We run down some of the winners and losers of the Summer Olympics.

Though most are known to deal with drugs and weapons, a new FBI threat assessment says street gangs have been moving into some different territory lately: human trafficking. The FBI says gang members increasingly are pushing women and children into prostitution.

U.S. official displeasure has grown over the problem of Chinese cyber-espionage. The Obama administration has signaled that it will step up the investigation and prosecution of trade-secret theft and has not ruled out punitive measures.

George Saunders has long been praised in literary circles for his short stories that deftly combine the absurd with the mundane. But now the author has caught mainstream attention with his newest collection, Tenth of December.

Over the past few weeks, Talk of the Nation has been asking for the books you think should be required reading for all college freshmen. Here are 10 of your suggestions.

Of nearly 11,000 malpractice claims paid on behalf of doctors in 2009, some 43 percent were for errors in outpatient settings. Diagnostic errors were the most common problem leading to malpractice payments for outpatients.