Lehrer is the cohost of "The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour." He has a new autobiography, "A Bus of My Own." He talks to Terry about how he found time to write the book despite his grueling schedule.
Essman will be one of the hosts on the new HBO comedy show, "One Night Stand." She appeared in the 1988 HBO comedy special, "On Location: Women of the Night II," and in the films, "Punchline, and Crocodile Dundee II."
Transplant surgeon pioneer Thomas Starzl. Last June he supervised the surgical team that transplanted a baboon's liver into a 35 year-old man who was dying of hepatitis B. It has since become known that the patient was HIV-positive, though he showed no symptoms of the disease. The case raised questions about whether it's ethical to "experiment" on a person who is HIV-positve. Starzl has a new book, called "The Puzzle People."
Book critic John Leonard reviews "The Secret History," by Donna Tart. She's associated with the young crop of writers from Bennington, including Bret Easton Ellis, to whom her novel is dedicated.
Anne Soukhanov is the Executive Editor of the new "American Heritage Dictionary of English Language, Third Edition." She's been a lexicographer and editor of reference books for over 20 years. She joins Fresh Air to talk about what new words say about changing culture.
Bergman is responsible for the new hit "Honeymoon in Vegas," starring Nicholas Cage, James Caan and Sarah Jessica Parker. He also wrote and directed "The Freshman," and has a long list of screenwriting credits, including "Blazing Saddles," "Fletch," "The In-Laws," and "Soapdish," to name a few.
Many listeners will know Clennon from his role as Miles Drentell on the ABC TV show "thirtysomething." He received and Emmy nomination for the part. Now he plays a drug dealer in the new Paul Schrader film "Light Sleeper" along with Willem Dafoe and Susan Sarandon. He's also been in the films "Missing," "the Right Stuff," "Sweet Dreams," "The Thing," "The Paper Chase," and many others. Offscreen, he's very active in Central American politics.
The debut writer's first book of short stories is "The Boy Without a Flag: Tales of The South Bronx." It's an autobiographical collection about the people in his neighborhood. He has said, "I write about the rancid underbelly of the American Dream." He's also in a punk rock band called Urgent Fury.
Isaacson has just written an extensive book about the life of Secretary of State and Nobel Prize Laureate. The writer takes us from Kissinger's boyhood in Germany, his family's flight to America in 1938, through his army career, his years at Harvard as a student and later a professor, and his rise to political power. Isaacson notes Kissinger's many accomplishments, but also portrays him as secretive, paranoid and duplicitous.
Writer Norman McLean died in 1990, leaving behind an unfinished manuscript about firefighters who died during the Mann Gulch Fire in Montana. It's just been published, and critic Maureen Corrigan has a review.
Trish Riley, the executive director of the National Academy for State Health Policy, talks about health care reforms in light of the fact that 35 million Americans are lacking health insurance. National health insurance is also a big campaign issue on both sides of the presidential race. Riley's organization works with states on health care policy, and will talk about what various states are doing, and where the balance should be struck between national and state responsibilities.
TV critic David Bianculli says that most of the over thirty shows premiering this season aren't worth watching; the ones that are don't fit neatly into the molds networks have been pushing this year..
Brown wrote the novels "Civil Wars" and "Tender Mercies." Her newest is called "Before and After." It's the story of a family's struggle to survive tragedy: their seventeen-year-old son Jacob conceals his darker side from his parents until the chief of police comes looking for Jacob one night in connection with the murder of his pregnant girlfriend.
Writer Dorothy Allison's new novel is called "Bastard Out of Carolina." It's about a poor South Carolina family's history of violence and incest, and is largely autobiographical. She says that she doesn't like most abuse literature out today because it tends to eroticize abuse. Allison has also written a book of short stories called "Trash" and a book of poems called "The Women Who Hate Me."
Martinez was born of Mexican-Salvadoran parents and raised in Los Angeles. His new book, "The Other Side," is a collection of reports, interviews, diary entries, photographs and poems that reflect living on the border between the "first world" of Los Angeles and the "third world" of El Salvador. He speaks with guerrillas in exile, earthquake survivors, war orphans and linerationist priests, which he juxtaposes with accounts of racial tension in the schools, Latino Graffiti art, and hip hop.
Rock historian Ed Ward looks back at the Troggs, who celebrate their 26th anniversary in the rock and roll business this year. He says they were "a bunch of incompetent goofballs" -- and that made them good.
Professor of English Joan DelFattore at the University of Delaware wrote the book "What Johnny Shouldn't Read," in which she examines several of the more publicized Federal court cases of the 1980s involving attempts to censor schoolbooks, looking at the resulting impact on publishers and on state education officials. She looks at efforts of both the right and the left to influence curricula.
