Maureen Corrigan says Anne Lamott's Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith continues her meditations on spirituality with a series of short essays. Corrigan says she's not preaching just to the choir, taking a "screwball approach to soul searching."
Classical music critic Lloyd Schwartz reviews the latest project by Russian conductor Valery Gergiev — recordings of Shostakovich's Fourth, Fifth, Seventh and Ninth Symphonies.
John Prendergast is Special Adviser to the President of the International Crisis Group. He has 20 years of experience attempting to resolve conflicts in Africa, and shaping U.S. foreign policy toward the region.
Former Marine Capt. Brian Steidle has been in the Darfur region of Western Sudan monitoring the humanitarian crisis there for the African Union. Steidle says there's no doubt that Sudan is in the midst of genocide.
We remember Gene Wilder who died Sunday at the age of 83, by listening back to his 2005 interview in which he talks about working with Mel Brooks, growing up, and his marriage to Gilda Radner.
Gene Wilder made his film debut as a kidnap victim in the 1967 Bonnie and Clyde. He is known for his work with Mel Brooks, in addition to the classic Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Wilder has written a new memoir, Kiss Me Like a Stranger: My Search for Love and Art.
Tim Curry's first movie was the 1975 cult classic The Rocky Horror Picture Show. He turned heads as Dr. Frank-N-Furter, a transvestite mad scientist. This week, Curry opens on Broadway in Spamalot, the musical version of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. He plays King Arthur.
TV critic David Bianculli reviews the new season of The Shield. The critically acclaimed show is adding actress Glen Close to its cast of burly, often violent alpha males.
Journalist Hugh Miles is the author of Al-Jazeera. Al-Jazeera, the premier news channel in the Arabic-speaking world, plans to launch an English channel sometime in the next few months.
Patrick Radden Keefe is the author of Chatter: Dispatches from the Secret World of Global Eavesdropping. For his book, Keefe researched the possibility that the United States has a planet-spanning surveillance network, known as Echelon. Keefe is a third-year student at Yale Law School and was a Marshall scholar and a 2003 fellow at the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library.
Roky Erickson was the front man for the 13th Floor Elevators, the first band to be called psychedelic. While they never became superstars, the Texas band's influence can still be felt today. Rock historian Ed Ward has a retrospective on Erickson's career.
Jazz critic Kevin Whitehead reviews two new box set releases from the mail-order house Mosaic: The Complete Argo/Mercury Art Farmer/Benny Golson/Jazztet Sessions and The Complete Roulette Dinah Washington Sessions.
Journalist Jack El-Hai is the author of The Lobotomist: A Maverick Medical Genius and His Tragic Quest to Rid the World of Mental Illness. El-Hai is the executive vice president of the American Society of Journalists and Authors and a winner of the June Roth Memorial Award for Medical Journalism.
Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato are the team behind Inside Deep Throat, a documentary about the 1972 porn classic Deep Throat. We talk with them about their movie -- and the original.
In his 30-year career, musician Fred Hersch has performed in solo, duo, trio and quintet settings. In 2003 he received the prestigious Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship, which he used to work on his latest project, Leaves of Grass. For it, Hersch leads a 10-piece ensemble, which includes vocalists singing the words of Walt Whitman set to compositions by Hersch. He is touring the ensemble this month.
In April, New York Times reporter Dexter Filkins will receive the George Polk Award for War Reporting for "his riveting, first-hand account of an eight-day attack on Iraqi insurgents in Fallujah." We talk with him about the rebuilding country and its recent elections.
