The Kamala Surprise: Harold Meyerson; Summer reading: John Powers; Black history: Isabel Wilkerson

Living in the USA

With ten weeks to go until election day, we'll look at where we've been in the last several weeks – most surprising: Kamala Harris emerging as a great candidate. Harold Meyerson explains that it’s not so much that Harris has changed but that the Democratic Party has.

Also: Summer Reading: M: Son of the Century is a 750-page historical novel about the rise of Mussolini by Antonio Scurati – John Powers, critic-at-large for NPR's Fresh Air draws parallels between 1920s Italy and Trump's America.

Plus: The Warmth of Other Suns, about the great migration of Black people out of the South, has made The New York Times 100 Best Books of the Century list; from the archives, my discussion with its author, Isabel Wilkerson (originally recorded in 2010).