Former FBI agent and interrogator Ali Soufan talks about dysfunction and rivalries inside the government's counterterrorism agencies that led to missed opportunities — as well as the ineffectiveness of enhanced interrogation techniques on collecting intelligence.
Classical music critic Lloyd Schwartz just attended two productions of Porgy and Bess: an operatic performance at Tanglewood and a musical-theater version in Cambridge, Mass. He says it can work either way, "as long as Gershwin's great score remains its heart and soul."
Margo Martindale plays Mags Bennett, the leader of a law-defying Appalachian family in the FX series Justified. The Emmy-nominated actress talks about playing Mags — as well as her other roles in Paris, Je T'Aime and Million Dollar Baby.
High-profile changes in returning shows --Two and a Half Men and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation — offer the most excitement in broadcast TV this fall. Critic David Bianculli says the new shows mostly disappoint, though you may be intrigued by Sarah Michelle Gellar in CW's Ringer.
The Air Force's Bay State Winds Clarinet Quartet joins Terry Gross for a discussion of military ensembles. The group also performs several songs in tribute to the men and women who've served since Sept. 11, 2001.
NBC News chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel details what it's like to report from some of the more dangerous war zones on the planet. He also discusses his recent dispatches from Egypt and Libya, where he was subject to tear gas attacks and artillery fire.
Journalist Alissa J. Rubin has spent most of the past 10 years reporting on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. On Thursday's Fresh Air, Rubin talks about the growing corruption and violence in Afghanistan, from which 33,000 U.S. troops are expected to withdraw by the summer of 2012.
In the liner notes to his new album, Ghost on the Canvas, Campbell writes that it's the last studio record he plans to make after being diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease. Rock critic Ken Tucker says the album "has a melancholy air of valedictory about it."
The terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, linger in our thoughts, but not so much in our speech. Linguist Geoff Nunberg says "it's striking that 9/11 and its aftereffects have left almost no traces in the language of everyday life."
Washington Post national security reporter Dana Priest's book Top Secret America looks at the top-secret intelligence and counterterrorism network created after Sept. 11. "No one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs, [or] how many programs exist within it," she says.
Reviewer Maureen Corrigan says Amy Waldman's debut novel might be the Sept. 11 novel — the one that finally does justice, artistically and historically, to the aftershocks of that day.
Firefighter Ken Haskell was off duty on Sept. 11, 2001, when his two brothers, also firefighters, died in the World Trade Center. Haskell's story of searching the rubble for his brothers' bodies is included in A Decade of Hope: Stories of Grief and Endurance from 9/11 Families and Friends.
The Chicago-based Deep Blue Organ Trio combines a Hammond organ with a guitar and drums. The group's fourth album Wonderful! pays tribute to the Stevie Wonder songbook. Critic Kevin Whitehead says more jazz musicians should cover Wonder, because his tunes are "jazz waiting to happen."
Vera Farmiga makes her directorial debut with Higher Ground, which centers on a woman who joins and then flees a fundamentalist religious order. Film critic David Edelstein says the movie is "complicated and unresolved in the best possible way."
In 1983, critic John Powers panned the Pacino film, saying it was trashy and shallow. But he recently watched the film again, and says that in retrospect, he can see how the film burned its way into the national psyche.
Leiber, the lyricist behind "Jailhouse Rock," "Yakety Yak" and "Stand By Me," died Monday. He was 78. Fresh Air remembers the songwriter with excerpts from a 1991 interview with Leiber and his songwriting partner Mike Stoller.
What if the rapture actually occurred? That's the plot of Tom Perrotta's new novel Te Leftovers, which examines the aftermath of an unexplained rapture like even in which millions of people around the globe inexplicably disappear into thin air.
Al Green wrote "Take Me to the River," but it was his labelmate Syl Johnson who first made it famous. Rock historian Ed Ward traces Johnson's early career, which started in Chicago blues clubs in the 1950s.
A new Christian movement that seeks to take dominion over politics, business and culture in preparation for the end times and Jesus' return is becoming more of a presence in American politics. Rachel Tabachnick, who researches the religious right, explains its beliefs and influences.
Doe is probably still best known as co-founder of the punk-rock band X more than 30 years ago. Rock critic Ken Tucker says Doe's new solo album Keeper is less conflicted and more contemplative than his earlier works.
