Civil rights lawyer Joseph Margulies' new book is Guantanamo and the Abuse of Presidential Power. Margulies has represented several prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay Detention Center, and he believes that current U.S. policy is a legal and ethical disaster. He says that few new prisoners are arriving at Guantanamo, but the population at Bagram prison in Afghanistan is growing rapidly.
Alan Furst has a new historical spy novel called The Foreign Correspondent. His first one, Night Soldiers, came out in 1988, and he's written eight more since then. Critic at large John Powers, who says he always snaps up a new one, explains Furst's appeal.
Trauma care professionals C. William Schwab and Therese Richmond work at the University of Pennsylvania Medical Center in Philadelphia. After years of treating patients in the emergency room, Schwab and Richmond have co-founded the Firearm Injury Center at Penn in an effort to systematically reduce the epidemic of gunshot wounds in the United States.
Comic actress Amy Sedaris offers a prequel to her Comedy Central series in the film version of Strangers with Candy. Amy, sibling of author David Sedaris, co-wrote the script with Stephen Colbert and Paul Dinello, friends from her days in the Second City improvisational theater troupe in the late 1980s.
At age 53, Texas singer James Hand has just released his debut album, The Truth Will Set You Free. Hand has been singing and playing for nearly four decades, but he's mostly performed in small town dives.
Hand is also a horse trainer when he's not singing. His sound has been compared to Hank Williams and Lefty Frizzell.
The brother-sister team of Eleanor and Matthew Friedberger has a new album called Bitter Tea, which they describe as "sissy psychedelic Satanism." Their other albums include Rehearsing My Choir, made with the participation of their 82-year-old grandmother.
Writer Reynolds Price has penned a total of 37 volumes of fiction, poetry, plays, essays and translations. His new book is Letter to a Godchild (Concerning Faith). Price has taught at Duke University since 1958, and has won numerous awards and honors for his work.
Author and museum director James Cameron died last Sunday at the age of 92. In 1930, an organized mob of more than 10,000 white men and women dragged Cameron and two other black teenage men from a jail cell in Marion, Ind. The mob mercilessly beat the three young men and lynched two — Cameron was spared. He recounted this experience in his 1984 memoir A Time of Terror and later founded the Black Holocaust Museum in Milwaukee, which he modeled after the Jewish Holocaust museum in Israel. This interview originally aired on March 8, 1994.
The Lake House, starring Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock, and Nacho Libre, starring Jack Black, are very different films with very different stars. But both provide good old escapist entertainment.
Sandy Tolan talks about his book The Lemon Tree: An Arab, a Jew and the Heart of the Middle East. The account grew out of a 1998 NPR documentary in which Tolan reported on a friendship between a Palestinian man and an Israeli woman that served as an example of the region's fragile history.
Our book critic reviews the critically acclaimed Stuart: A Life Backwards, by Alexander Masters. It's a British biography of a homeless man as told by his social worker.
Environmentalist William Powers' new book is Whispering in the Giant's Ear: A Frontline Chronicle From Bolivia's War on Globalization. Powers is also the author of Blue Clay People, about Liberia. He has worked for over a decade in development aid in Latin America, Africa and Washington DC.
New York Times environmental reporter Andrew Revkin has covered climate change and climate politics for 20 years. His new book The North Pole Was Here: Puzzles and Perils at the Top of the World is geared toward young adults.
Dick Cheney's daughter was a campaign aide for her father during the 2000 and 2004 elections. The fact that she is a lesbian put a distinctive spin on the experience. She has a new memoir: Now It's My Turn.
Syracuse English professor Mary Karr is the author of two bestselling memoirs, The Liars' Club and Cherry. She has won Pushcart prizes for both her poetry and essays. Her new book of poems is Sinners Welcome.
Sharon Weinberger's new book is Imaginary Weapons: A Journey Through the Pentagon's Scientific Underworld. She looks at some of the wild schemes and fringe science projects under way at the Department of Defense.
Her articles have appeared in The Washington Post, Slate and Aviation Week & Space Technology. She's editor-in-chief of Defense Technology International.
Our TV critic and (guest host for this show) previews the third season premiere of the HBO series Deadwood. The show returns to the air this Sunday at 9:00 p.m. ET.
