Hey, it's NPR's book of the day. I'm Andrew Limbaugh. Real quick, NPR is doing its annual survey to better understand how you, our listeners, spent time with podcasts. It would be a huge favor if you could take a sec and fill it out. It's quick and easy and anonymous and help support the pods here at NPR.

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So the writer Dan Sean wrote this bloody, violent, funny, and sort of dystopian thriller called Sleepwalk. It was one of those situations where he

wanted to write about America today, as it is. And the only way in he could figure to do it

was to create a slightly different America, one in the not too far off future. But like the best

dystopian thrillers, it isn't bleak, there's some real heart at the end of the rainbow here.

And in this interview with NPR Scott Simon, Sean talks about how he was partially inspired by the time he, as an adoptee, reached out to his own biological father, just as he was having his own kids.

A lot of short daily news podcasts focus on just one story.

But right now, you probably need more.

On Up First from NPR, we bring you three of the world's top headlines every day in under 15 minutes.

Because no one's story can capture all that's happening in this big, crazy world of ours on any given morning.

Listen now to the Up First podcast from NPR.

Will Bear lives off the grid.

He's got so many alias as he can forget them.

He's got a bucket full of burner phones and tosses them out the window of his van when they're done.

He's never worked in nine to five paid taxes

or been in a real human relationship, save for, with his dog, Flip, a 60-pound pit bull with

PTSD. We'll bear micro doses LSD and Tito's vodka the way some people suck down

oat milk lattes.

...