Terry Gross

In 1967, mathematician Ed Thorp revolutionized Wall Street with a method of using math and computers to predict the future of the stock market — and his hedge fund has been profitable ever since. Thorp's story, and those of many other market-driven math whizzes, is told in Scott Patterson's new book The Quants: How a New Breed of Math Whizzes Conquered Wall Street and Nearly Destroyed It.

Mare's-urine cocktails? Do-it-yourself forceps? Randi Hutter Epstein's new book Get Me Out: A History of Childbirth From the Garden of Eden to the Sperm Bank is full of delightful — and sometimes disturbing — anecdotes about the history of pregnancy and childbirth.

One of writer-director Mike Judge's favorite themes is American stupidity. His popular animated series Beavis and Butt-Head featured two brainless 15 year-olds obsessed with MTV. His 2007 film, Idiocracy, envisions a not-so-utopian American future in which evolution has bred the intelligence out of humanity. Judge's latest comedy, Extract, now out on DVD, revisits a second favorite subject — the American workplace. Where his cult classic Office Space pitted disgruntled office employees against their incompetent bosses, Extract focuses Judge's satirical eye on management.