Terry Gross

The political journalist is a former Jesuit seminarian and professor of public policy at Northwestern University. His new book is called Under God. It's a collection of essays about the frequent collison of politics and religion in America.

The African American novelist's books include Appalachee Red, which won the James Baldwin Prize for Fiction, Rosiebelle Lee Wildcat Tennessee, and Baby Sweets. He's just published a memoir, The Last Radio Baby, about growing up the fourth of ten childen in a sharecropper family in rural Georgia.

Welch is a Native American writer whose written a number of books about Indian life. His books include, "Fools Crow," "The Death of Jim Loney," "Winter in the Blood." His latest is, "The Indian Lawyer" about a Blackfeet Indian who rises to power in the White man's world who gets caught up in a blackmail scheme.

Owen Gleiberman reviews the latest in the Rocky franchise. Directed by John G. Avildsen, Gleiberman says it tries to recapture the innocence and humanity of the original, but never quite reaches its goal.

Callen's new book profiles the longest surviving people with the virus, including himself; he was diagnosed in 1982. Also an AIDS activist, he co-founded the People With AIDS Coalition and the Community Research Initiative.

Wyman is the quiet, low-profile member of the band who avoided drugs. Using his diaries for reference, he wrote a book about his time in the band through the 1960s, called Stone Alone.

Film critic Stephen Schiff reviews the director's new film about the famous painter and his brother. Schiff says it's as much about them as it is the bond between art and commerce.

Cunningham's new novel, A Home at the End of the World, is about the friendship and sexual relationships between two men and woman. It was inspired in large part by Cunningham's own ambiguous sexuality, as well as living through the AIDS crisis.

Rodney replaced Miles Davis in Charlie Parker's band. Many people know about their collaboration through the Parker biopic, Bird. After a drug problem in the 1970s, Rodney got clean and has been going strong ever since. His new album is called Code Red.

Literary critic Denis Donogue was a Catholic who grew up in a community suspicious of Protestants. His memoir about his life in Northern Ireland, and his father's career in the constabulary, is called "Warrenpoint."