Dave Davies

Former Jeopardy! champ Ken Jennings charts what he calls "the wide, weird world of geography" in his latest book, Maphead. He profiles Google Maps engineers, geocachers, imaginary mapmakers, map collectors, geography bee contestants and "road geeks."

Journalist Alissa J. Rubin has spent most of the past 10 years reporting on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. On Thursday's Fresh Air, Rubin talks about the growing corruption and violence in Afghanistan, from which 33,000 U.S. troops are expected to withdraw by the summer of 2012.

The A&P changed the way Americans do their grocery shopping, but it did so at a cost -- thousands of mom-and-pop corner stores closed as the chain grew. Economic historian Marc Levinson chronicles the rise and fall of the grocery giant in The Great A&P and the Struggle for Small Business in America.

You might not recognize actor Andy Serkis, but you've probably seen his characters on-screen. Searches is Hollywood's go-to actor for computer-generated roles. His movies include Lord of the Rings, King Kong and Rise of the Planet of the Apes.

The Irish actor plays a cynical, small-town cop who is thrust out of his comfort zone in the black comedy The Guard. "I've met men like [my character] quite a lot," Gleeson says. "People who are underused a little bit and have terribly sharp wit, but pretend to be a little bit stupid."

Entomologist Mark Moffett loves ants. He's devoted his career to studying the tiny insects: how they move, what they eat, when they attack their prey. Moffett's book, Adventures Among Ants, details his explorations around the world, tracking many a species through jungle forests and remote mountain passes.

This interview was originally broadcast on June 17, 2010.

In December 2009, an al-Qaida mole believed to be a CIA informant detonated a suicide bomb inside a fortified military base in Pakistan, killing seven CIA employees. Reporter Joby Warrick writes about the man who pulled off the attack — and explains how he did it — in The Triple Agent.

Peter Berg, executive producer of NBC's Friday Night Lights, talks about the virtues of shooting on location, using local performers, and what the series explores that the movie couldn't.

This interview was originally broadcast on April 11, 2007. Friday Night Lights will end its five-season run on Friday July 15, 2011 on NBC at 8 p.m. ET.

Linda Greenlaw took a decade off from commercial fishing, but the siren call of the deep blue water drew her back in. The only female swordfish boat captain in the United States recounts her latest adventure at sea in a memoir, Seaworthy.

This interview was originally broadcast on June 8, 2010. Seaworthy: A Swordboat Captain Returns to the Sea is now available in paperback. Greenlaw and her mother Martha have also recently released a cookbook, The Maine Summers Cookbook: Recipes for Delicious, Sun-Filled Days.

Jim Shepard writes what he knows, but he also likes to write what he doesn't know. "I think literature is, in some ways, about the exercise of the empathetic imagination," Shepard says. "I'm always interested in stretching that capacity." You Think That's Bad is his latest collection of short stories.