Terry Gross

Writer Cynthia Ozick. In 1981 and 1984, Ozick's two stories, "The Shawl" and "Rosa" won the O. Henry Prize award. Both stories appear in Ozick's new book, called The Shawl. In it, Ozick looks at what it means to `survive' the Nazi concentration camps, telling the story of Rosa, who witnesses the murder of her infant daughter in the camps. Later, living in Miami, Rosa imagines her daughter alive and married to a doctor in the United States.

Airline expert George Brown. In his new book, The Airline Passenger's Guerrilla Handbook, Brown explains how to beat the air travel system. He tells how to find the cheapest fares, accumulate frequent flyer points, how to beat jet lag, even how to make love while in flight.

Reporter Thomas J. Moore. In his new book, Heart Failure, Moore argues that one of America's biggest health concerns - trying to reduce cholesterol - is a waste of time. Moore re-examines health studies and concludes that diet and exercise do relatively little to lower cholesterol, and almost nothing to increase lifespan. Moore also examines the little reported dangers of heart surgery and other coronary procedures. Part of Moore's book appears in the September issue of The Atlantic Monthly under the title "The Cholesterol Myth." Terry also talks with Dr. W.

Critic Owen Gleiberman reviews the home video version of John Sayles' 1983 film, "Baby, It's You."

Shakespearean scholar Gary Taylor. Four years ago, Taylor made headlines when he claimed to have discovered a new Shakespeare poem. Now Taylor's written a cultural history of the Bard of Stratford, called Reinventing Shakespeare. In it, Taylor asks `is Shakespeare really as great as everyone says?' Taylor looks at how changing societies have reinterpreted Shakespeare, and to some extent all great literature, to correspond with changing social mores and opinions.

Former tennis champion Arthur Ashe. In 1980, after quadruple bypass surgery, Ashe retired from professional competition. For the last several years, Ashe has been teaching and writing about the barriers and discrimination which black atheletes have faced. A Hard Road To Glory is his three-volume history of African-American athletes. (Rebroadcast. Originally broadcast on Friday, January 6, 1989.)

Writer Ian Frazier. He's known primarily as a writer of humor pieces for The New Yorker magazine. Some of those earlier short humor pieces and essays were collected in two earlier books, Dating Your Mom and Nobody Better, Better than Nobody. His new book, Great Plains, is quite different. It describes a history of the great plains through Frazier's own trips driving 25,000 miles in a criss-cross of the area, and hours spent in the New York's Public Library reading about the great plains.

Film director and screenwriter Paul Schrader. His screenwriting credits include "Taxi Driver" and "The Last Temptation of Christ." Schrader's directing credits include "Hard Core," "Light of Day," "American Gigolo" and last summer's film "Patty Hearst." (Rebroadcast. Originally broadcast on September 7 and 8, 1988).

Film critic Steven Schiff previews "Sea of Love," which opens on Friday (Sept. 15). It stars Al Pacino as a cop who falls in love with a suspected killer, played by Ellen Barkin.

Mystery writer Mary Wings. Wings' novels draw on the familiar hard-boiled detective genre, but her heroine is a lesbian-feminist detective named Emma Victor. Wings new book is titled "She Came in a Flash."