Terry Gross

Historian Christopher Andrew is the author of the new book "The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB" (Basic books). The book is based on the documents smuggled out of the KGB archives by Vasili Mitrokhin, who worked for 30 years in the foreign intelligence archives of the KGB. In 1972 he began making notes and transcripts of the archives which he then smuggled out daily and hid. He defected to Britain in 1992.

Journalist and staff writer for The New Yorker Nicholas Lemann is the author of the new book "The Big Test: The Secret History of the American Meritocracy" (Farrar, Strauss & Giroux). It's a social history of how reformers in the mid 1940s set upon universal testing criteria (the Educational Testing Service, purveyors of the SAT) as a way of creating a new democratic elite, drawn from every section and every background of America. And it's about how that 50 year old system has failed.

Choying Drolma is a Tibetan Buddhist nun who practices a contemplative system of Buddhism called Cho. As part of that system, she also sings religious songs and chants. Their music was recorded by guitarist Steve Tibbetts who then created guitar arrangements around it. The result was the CD "Cho" (newly released on Hannibal Records). Drolma is currently on tour with Tibbetts and her fellow nuns.