Terry Gross

He collected many of his song lyrics and poems in the book Blackbird Singing: Poems and Lyrics 1965-1999.

He was the drummer for the Beatles in their early days in Liverpool and Hamburg. His mother, Mona Best, was the owner of The Casbah Coffee Club in Liverpool. The various early incarnations of the Beatles played the Casbah more than 90 times. Best has co-written a large format book The Beatles: The True Beginnings (by Roag Best with Pete and Rory Best). Today he writes, records and tours with his own group, The Pete Best Band.

Starr is back with his third All Starr Band. Produced by David Fishof, (who created and produced the first two tours), a world tour begins in Japan in June, and will be in America in July and August. Starr will talk to Terry about his life before, during and after the Beatles. (Segment)

He is the editorial page editor of The Rutland Herald in Vermont, where he won that paper's first Pulitzer for his series of editorials in support of same-sex unions. He's the author of the new book, Civil Wars: A Battle for Gay Marriage. Vermont became the first state in the country to make civil unions legal for gay and lesbian couples. In 1999, the state Supreme Court ruled that gay couples were due the legal rights of marriage, and told the state legislature to decide how best to do that.

Lewis is The Boston Globe's state House reporter. He'll discuss the ruling by the Massachusetts high court yesterday that gay couples in that state will be accorded full equal marriage rights rather than civil unions. The ruling is a clarification of the court's November decision that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry. The state Senate asked for clarification on the decision, because they felt it was worded vaguely.

Kassem is an Egyptian human-rights activist and the publisher of Cairo Times, Egypt's only independent English-language news magazine.

As an actress, she's best-known for her portrayal of Princess Leia in the Star Wars movies. She's also the author of the bestsellers Postcards From the Edge (which she adapted into a screenplay for the film of the same name), and Surrender the Pink. Like Postcards from the Edge, Fisher's new book The Best Awful is based on her own life. In it, Hollywood actress Suzanne Vale's husband leaves her for another man, and then she is diagnosed with bipolar illness.

Saudi Arabian-Born Ambah is participating in the five-day Muslim pilgrimage (known as the "hajj") to Mecca, Saudi Arabia. It began on Jan. 30. She is traveling with her two sisters. Over the weekend, 244 people were crushed to death in a stampede. Ambah is writing about her journey for The Christian Science Monitor. She now makes her home in Arlington, Va.

Groopman is author of The Anatomy of Hope. Groopman teaches at the Harvard Medical School and is chief of experimental medicine at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. He also writes about medicine and biology for The New Yorker.

Photographer Rosamond Purcell's new book, Owls Head, is about her 20-year friendship with William Buckminster, an eccentric collector whose dilapidated antiques shop and 11-acre junkyard in Maine became something of a tourist attraction. Buckminster sold many of his items to Purcell, who took them home and photographed them in large-format Polaroids. Purcell, who's been called the "doyenne of decay," has also collaborated three times on books with the late paleontologist and science historian Stephen Jay Gould.