Terry Gross

Lincoln Chafee, former U.S. senator from Rhode Island, was often called the most liberal Republican in the Senate. In office, he bucked his party on a number of hot-button issues, including same-sex marriage and the war in Iraq. His book Against the Tide challenges the Republican Party on its rightward drift.

It's been four years since Gene Robinson was consecrated bishop of a rural Episcopal diocese in New Hampshire. He's faced challenges and controversies as that denomination's first openly gay bishop — and he's written about them in a new memoir, In the Eye of the Storm.

From dewy-eyed ingenue in Dangerous Liaisons to martial-artist mother in Kill Bill, Uma Thurman has played a range of singular roles. She joins Fresh Air to talk about her career — and her new independent film The Life Before Her Eyes.