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Bryce Harper was 16 when he made the cover of Sports Illustrated as "Baseball's Chosen One." He was 17 when he was the top pick in the amateur draft. And he was 19 when he made his major league debut with the Washington Nationals. Now, after two months of play, he's measuring up to all the hype.

It's easy to get overwhelmed by all the great reading material out there. Luckily NPR Books is here for you. Here are the five stories about books that you shouldn't miss this week.

This year, three-quarters of the country are experiencing some level of drought, and many cities are temporarily banning fireworks. But restrictions may not keep committed revelers from the rush of lighting a fuse.

President Barack Obama led a special naturalization ceremony for new citizens from the U.S. military at the White House. Robert Siegel has more.

Peter Higgs is the name — and man — behind the Higgs boson. He and his team proposed the particle's existence back in the 1960s. Robert Siegel talks to Victoria Martin, a lecturer in physics and astronomy at the University of Edinburgh and a former student of Higgs, for more.

There is perhaps nothing more American than flipping burgers on the Fourth of July — even if the burgers are being flipped in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. A Cambodian-American who fled the Killing Fields of his country more than 30 years ago has returned and opened his own Burger House.

The fires and drought conditions in the state prompted a firework ban for the July 4 holiday. But an exception was made Tuesday night in Denver, where a giant crowd gathered to watch fireworks, and applauded the efforts of those fighting to contain the fires.

When the officials at a Florida prison realized who Al Black was, they gave him a paintbrush and the walls as a canvas.

A New Orleans socialite donated space in her family's mausoleum in the city's famous St. Louis Cemetery No. 2. Now, the final resting place of a white, aristocratic family is also the eternal home of black musical royalty: Ernie "Emperor of the Universe" K-Doe and Earl King.

A small, out-of-the-way Michigan town is celebrating its unique place in America's civil rights history. From 1912 until the Civil Rights Act passed in 1964, Idlewild was the summer refuge of choice for thousands of black Americans looking to escape the shadow of Jim Crow in the woods of northern Michigan.