This interview was originally broadcast on August 25, 2011. The Leftovers is now available in paperback.

Last year, California-based preacher Harold Camping announced that the beginning of the end of the world would take place on May 21, 2011. The date passed by with no apparent rapture, and Camping became the butt of many late-night talk show jokes.

But what if the rapture did actually occur? That's the premise of Tom Perrotta's latest novel, The Leftovers, which examines the aftermath of an unexplained rapturelike event in which millions of people around the globe inexplicably disappear into thin air.

In 1970 a young girl lost her banana-seat bike. Lisa Brown was riding it across a rickety bridge in Cape Cod, Mass., when she and the bike tumbled into a little river. The bike sank into the muck and was gone.

Amy Richter was slathered up in oil and wearing a sparkling red bikini when she competed in her first bodybuilding contest a few years ago. That was quite a change for an Episcopal priest. Host Michel Martin speaks with the "Ripped Reverend" about keeping the body and spirit strong.

NPR's "Sick in America" survey found that a lot of Americans are unhappy with the healthcare system. Among those who had a recent serious healthcare experience, nearly half said that a lack of cultural understanding played a big role in the problems with U.S. healthcare quality. Host Michel Martin talks with NPR's Richard Knox and Dr. Kavita Patel of the Brookings Institution.

On Morning Edition, NPR's Frank Langfitt reported about a Chinese company's $2.6 billion purchase of North America's second-largest movie theater chain. Now, he tells us how the movie-going experience has changed in China in recent years:

When I first moved to Beijing in 1997, going to the movies wasn't really an option. Many of the theaters were decades-old, the acoustics lousy and ticket prices too high — so high in fact that most Chinese didn't go. To the degree I remember attending movies back then, I recall mostly sitting alone in the dark.

It was depressing.

Happy Friday! Here are some of the stories we're looking at:

Live: Space X Craft Approaching Space Station For Docking Attempt.

Egypt May Be Headed To Runoff Between Islamist And Former Mubarek Aide.

Hurricane Bud Expected To Make Landfall Tonight On Mexico's Pacific Coast; Tropical Storm Beryl May Form This Weekend Off Florida's Atlantic Coast. (NHC)

As Egyptian officials count ballots from this week's first-ever free presidential election in that country, the Muslim Brotherhood is claiming its candidate got the most votes and will likely be in a runoff next month against ousted President Hosni Mubarak's last prime minister.

From Cairo, NPR's Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson cautions that officials are advising against "believing statements by groups claiming to know who won." Official results aren't due to be released until next Tuesday.

Police in Boxtford, Mass., responded to a call about six party crashers. The Tri-Town Transcript reports the cows chased away partiers, and drank their beer.

Hamelin was the setting for the tale of the Pied Piper who lured the town's rats into a river and then led away its children when he wasn't paid. Some 700 years later, the rats have returned and chewed through the electric cable powering the town's fountain.