Terry Gross

Gladys Hansen is the archivist for the city of San Francisco. She's just written "Denial of Disaster," a book about the 1906 earthquake which corrects misinformation perpetuated about the quake.

Comedy writer Eddie Gorodetsky. He's written for SCTV, Saturday Night Live, and Late Night with David Letterman. His latest gig is with HBO's newly-launched Comedy Channel, where his job title is "head writer and original programming consultant," but his role is all-encompassing.

Charles Solomon is the author of Enchanted Drawings: A History of Animation. His book traces the art form from the magic lantern shows of the 1600's through the silent films of the 1920's to such modern-day phenomena as Roger Rabbit and the California Raisins.

Writer Stefan Kanfer. Kanfer's latest book is called "A Summer World: The Attempt to Build a Jewish Eden in the Catskills, from the Days of the Ghetto to the Rise and Decline of the Borscht Belt." The Borsht Belt nurtured a generation of comics and defined a culture. Kanfer talks about the lives of the people who frequented the Catskill resorts, and the reason those resorts are now in decline.

Composer John Adams. Although he comes out of the classical tradition, Adams is not afraid to use drum machines, synthesizers and silent-movie chord progressions in his music. His latest work, "The Wound Dresser", is a setting of a poem by Walt Whitman about the experience of tending wounded soldiers during the Civil War. For Adams, the work has connections to both the AIDS crisis and his father's recent battle with Alzheimer's disease. Adams also talks about his best-known work, the opera "Nixon in China".

Terry and film critic Stephen Schiff look back on the movies of the 80s, and how the decade changed film making. Stephen also gives his picks for the best films of the 1980s.

For the last word on the 80s, comedian Al Franken looks back on the Al Franken decade. It's from an interview Terry did with Franken on March 22, 1988.

Film critic Stephen Schiff picks the best movies of 1989.

Sports writer Rick Telander (TAL-en-der). Telander's new book, "The Hundred Yard Lie," is a scathing indictment of the college football system. Telander says college football makes millions and millions of dollars while bathing itself in a false light of amateurism. The players, meanwhile suffer physical pain, financial corruption, and educational starvation. Telander has seen college football from both sides of the fence. He's a staff writer for Sports Illustrated and a former all-conference cornerback for Northwestern University.

Jazz guitarist Jim Hall. In the 50s, Hall was part of the West Coast jazz scene. Several years later he was touring South America with Ella Fitzgerald when the Bossa Nova craze hit. That music's been a lasting influence on Hall. In the 70s, Hall recorded with free-jazz player Ornette Coleman and made several albums with jazz's best bassists. In all, Hall's made more than 100 albums, his latest, with his quartet, is called "All Across The City." It's on the Concord jazz label.