Terry Gross

Louis C.K. decided to offer Tig Notaro: Live exclusively on his website when he saw the comedian perform a set just hours after receiving her cancer diagnosis.

Stephen Colbert has a new book called America Again: Re-becoming the Greatness We Never Weren't. It explores the dichotomy between thinking America is perfect — and feeling the urge to save the country from disaster at every moment.

The director of Boogie Nights and There Will Be Blood talks to Fresh Air's Terry Gross about his new film, The Master, a tense drama with indelible performances from Philip Seymour Hoffman, Joaquin Phoenix and Amy Adams.

Waging Heavy Peace is about his music, raising two sons with special needs, and his own medical conditions, which have included polio, epilepsy and a brain aneurysm.

The Oscar-nominated actress plays the forbidding wife of a cult leader in Paul Thomas Anderson's The Master. She tells Fresh Air it was an opportunity to play a character type she'd never played before.

Frances Ashcroft's new book details how electricity in the body fuels everything we thing, feel or do. She tells Fresh Air about discover a new protein, how scientists are like novelists and how she wanted to be a farmer's wife.

In his first novel, J.R. Moehringer writes from the point of view of Willie Sutton, whom he calls the "greatest American robber." Moehringer says writing historical fiction helped him deal with the anger he felt toward banks after the global financial crisis in 2008.

Journalist Robert Draper's article for The Atlantic traces how the redistricting process has been manipulated for electoral gain. It has created increasingly solid Republican or Democratic congressional districts, which has led to more representatives who are unwilling to compromise, Draper tells Fresh Air.

In his new book, The Fine Print: How Big Companies Use "Plain English" to Rob You Blind, author David Cay Johnston examines the fees that companies have added over the years that have made bills incrementally larger. He tells Fresh Air that companies are misusing language to "confuse people."

The Guardian's Gahaith Abdul-Ahad calls the Syrian battle fluid and complicated. "There is chaos, there is no military planning, there is no organization," he tells Fresh Air. He reported for the PBS Frontline documentary The Battle for Syria, which airs Tuesday.