Terry Gross

Young's newest show is “VR.5,” on the Fox Network. The show follows Sydney Bloom, who accidentally discovers she can enter any landscape or time of her choosing through her computer. Young also produced the TV show "China Beach."

William Adler is author of, Land of Opportunity: One Family's Quest For The American Dream In The Age of Crack. It tells the story of the Chambers brothers, who moved to Detroit from Mississippi in the mid-80's in search of economic freedom. They found it by setting up the biggest drug business in the city -- complete with quality control, discounts, employee bonuses and a dress code.

Spencer's new book, Men In Black, was called "charmingly funny-sad" by the New York Times. His previous books include Last Night at the Brain Thieves' Ball, Endless Love, and Waking the Dead.

Amis is the author of The Information. The book is about rivalry in the literary world, which some have said parallels Amis' own life. Britain's literary world was shocked when Amis demanded a half-million pound advance on The Information, supposedly to pay for his divorce and costly dental work, and then dumped his long-time agent, who was also the wife of his best friend. The New York Times has called The Information "an uncompromising and highly ambitious novel that should also be a big popular hit."

Allende has published her first work of non-fiction, Paula. It's about her 28 year old daughter, who fell into an irreversible coma. Paula began as a letter to her dying daughter and turned into an autobiographical work about Allende's childhood in Chile, her exile in Venezuela and her move to San Francisco.

Writer/Director Kayo Hatta. Her film "Picture Bride," is the story of a young woman who moves to Hawaii as a "picture bride." Picture brides were Japanese women who moved to Hawaii in order to marry the Japanese plantation workers who settled there. The women would only have seen a picture of their future husband before they were married. The film is Hatta's first commercial release and the first Hawaiian production to gain a commercial release, and also won the 1995 Sundance Film Festival Audience Award for best dramatic film.

David Halberstam is a journalist and author who won the 1964 Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on the Vietnam War for The New York Times. He was one of the first American reporters to contradict the government's optimistic picture of the war. He was attacked by officials of South Vietnam and the United States for negativism and inaccuracy in his reporting. (Rebroadcast)

Lt. Gen. Harold Moore and U.S. News and World Report Senior Writer Joseph Galloway. On November 14, 1965 they were together in the at the site one of the first and bloodiest major land battle of the Vietnam War, Ia Drang. Moore was in command of the 1st battalion of the 7th Cavalry, and Galloway, then a UPI reporter, accompanied them. They've cowritten a book about their experiences in the Ia Drang valley, called "We Were Soldiers Once...And Young. (Rebroadcast)

Herr wrote what's considered the definitive Vietnam book, Dispatches. The movie "Apocalypse Now" is loosely based on his writings. (Rebroadcast)

The two time Pulitzer Prize winning novelist joins us to talk about his new book Oswald's Tale: An American Mystery. Mailer says we must ask "Who was Oswald?" as a prelude to asking "Who killed JFK?" The book profiles Lee Harvey Oswald's life. It's Mailer's 28th book.