Okay, it's NPR's Book of the Day.

I'm Andrew Limbong.

One of the best privileges going to college affords is time.

Yeah, sure, time to study and read books and stuff, I guess, but also time to, I don't know,

bum around with your friends and talk about whatever.

And interestingly enough, that's how you get to some deeper conversations about life and

meaning and truth.

Matt Green's book, The Definitions, centers on some dorm mates who have these conversations,

but with a dystopian twist, after the break, he talks to NPR's Lauren Freyer about how

language is actually an imperfect way to communicate ideas and how

he was inspired by sending his kid to school for the first time.

This message comes from Wise, the app for international people using money around the globe.

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Be smart. Get Wise. Download the wise app today or visit wise.com. T's and Cs apply. Matt Green's new novel, The Definitions, starts with a

simple, relatable scene, new dorm mates getting to know each other. It could be any college campus.

But there is a dystopian backstory. These students are survivors of a virus that has erased

people's memories. I spoke with Green and asked what inspired him to write about people

trying to navigate the world in this way.

The sort of rush towards authoritarianism from

electorates across the world was definitely a big consideration. The acceleration or hyper

acceleration of our sort of disconnect between language and meaning and the industrialization

of that post-meaning landscape was definitely something that was playing on my mind.

...