Terry Gross

Director and actor Paul Bartel. Bartel's acting credits include roles in "Fame" and "L.A. Law," but he's best known for his direction of several black comedies, such as "Eating Raoul," which he also co-wrote and acted in. Bartel's new film, "Scenes from the Class Struggle in Beverly Hills," has just been released. It stars Ed Begley Jr. and Jacqueline Bisset.

The New York Times correspondent's new book is called From Beirut to Jerusalem, about Arab-Israeli conflicts in the Middle East. He joins Fresh Air to discuss how cultivating a network of contacts, coming to terms with the frequent violence he witnessed in Lebanon, and how those experience affected his reporting in Israel.

Many contemporary musicians cite Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young as among the prime innovators of jazz sax saxophone. But historian Loren Schoenberg says we shouldn't overlook the soulful contributions of Herschel Evans, who played with Count Basie's band.

The director lives in San Francisco, far from the filmmaking hub of Los Angeles. Takahashi's isolation has allowed him to develop a unique directorial style. He join Fresh Air to discuss how he best takes advantage of the creative freedom given to him when making a commercial or logo.

The feminist scholar looks at how women in dual-career partnerships are often responsible for most of the unpaid domestic work. Hochschild joins Fresh Air to discuss why men don't share this labor equally with their partners, and the toll this inequity takes on working women.

Unlike other film critics, Stephen Schiff isn't so troubled by the ambiguous ending of Spike Lee's third movie. Schiff admires the way Do the Right Thing smartly grapples with race relations, but he's frustrated by how inconsistent the characters are, a directorial flaw that serves the sometimes twisting plot.

Writer Ian Frazier is known primarily as a humor writer for The New Yorker magazine. His new book, Great Plains, is describes a history of the region through Frazier's own trips driving 25,000 miles in a criss-cross of the area, and hours of research in the New York's Public Library.

Callahan was paralyzed in a drunk driving accident. Since then, he's become comic strip artist whose irreverent cartoons focus on the experiences of the disabled. Callahan's new memoir is called Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot.

Rich's writing has been deeply political, but her recent poetry explores more personal themes. She joins Fresh Air to discuss her coming out as a lesbian, the difference between her poetry and the poetry written by men, and why she's reluctant to speak publicly about her personal life, despite being an autobiographical writer.

An's White Badge is the first Korean novel to be published by an American house. The story is based on his experience as a soldier in the Vietnam War. An also works as a translator, and has translated several American books into Korean.