Books & Literature

Lennard Davis talks about his new memoir “My Sense of Silence: Memoirs of a Childhood With Deafness” (University of Illinois Press), about Davis's experiences, growing up a hearing child with deaf parents. He'll talk about his complex and sometimes difficult relationship with his deaf, working-class Jewish immigrant parents. DAVIS is a professor and Graduate Director of the English Department at State University of New York, Binghamton. He has written several books and published essays in The Nation, the Chronicle of Higher Education, and other publications.

Nathaniel Lachenmeyer has written the new book, “The Outsider: A Journey Into My Father’s Struggle with Madness” (Broadway Books). His father, Charles, was a professor of sociology who lived a normal suburban life with his family until the onset of schizophrenia. The disease destroyed his life: he lost his job, his family, and ended up homeless. Nathaniel corresponded with his father until it became too difficult to continue. After learning of his father’s death in 1995, he decided to find out what happened to him.

Poets Sonia Sanchez and Michael Harper. The two are featured on a new CD anthology, "Our Souls Have Grown Deep Like the Rivers" (Rhino) a collection of African American poetry from 1919 to 1999. It Includes the work of Langston Hughes, W.E.B. DuBois, Maya Angelou, Gil Scott-heron, Amiri Baraka and others.

Book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews “The Romantics” (Random House) by Pankaj Mishra.

Basketball legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, talks about his new book, A Season on the Reservation: My Sojourn with the White Mountain Apache (William Morrow and co). In 1998, a member of the Native American tribe, the White Mountain Apaches, asked Abdul-Jabbar to coach the high school boys basketball team on the reservation. A Season on the Reservation tells the story of his time with the team. Since retiring from the NBA in 1989, Abdul-Jabbar has appeared on TV and in films, worked with numerous charitable organizations, and authored 3 other books.

Maureen Corrigan reviews “City of God” by E.L. Doctorow.

Attorneys Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld. They co-founded the Innocence Project, dedicated to freeing innocent people from jail using DNA tests to do so. Barry Scheck is best known for his DNA analysis on the OJ Simpson defense team. They've collaborated on a new book (along with columnist Jim Dwyer) about their efforts, "Actual Innocence: Five Days to Execution, and Other Dispatches From the Wrongly Convicted." (Doubleday).

Writer and editor Dave Eggers. He’s the founder of the now-defunct cynical, satirical literary magazine, “Might” and the current editor of the literary journal “McSweeney’s.” He’s written a memoir (“based on a true story”) about being left to raise his 8 year old brother, after both his parents died. Eggers was 21 at the time. It’s called, “A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius” (Simon & Schuster).

Retired U.S. Navy flight surgeon and NASA astronaut Capt. Jerry Linenger ("Linn-en-jer") In his new book, Off the Planet: Surviving Five Perilous Months Aboard the Space Station Mir" (McGraw-Hill) he chronicles his five months on board the Russian Space station "Mir" a ramshackle place he described as "six school buses all hooked together." During his five months there, they had numerous brushes with death, lacking adequate supplies, and battling constant system failures.

Karl Evanzz is an on-line editor at the Washington Post, and author of "The Messenger: The Rise and Fall of Elijah Muhammad" (Pantheon Books) the founder and "Prophet" of the Nation of Islam. Evanzz talked to Muhammad's children, his apostles, and had access to previously unreleased FBI files about him.

David Reimer was born a boy in 1967, but after a botched circumcision, and on the advise of doctors, his sex was surgically altered and he was raised as a girl. He also had an identical twin brother. Told of his surgery at the age of 14, Reimer decided to live as a male. Reimer’s case became a landmark because of its value to the study of nature vs. nurture. He’s the subject of the new book, “As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who was Raised as a Girl” (HarperCollins) by John Colapinto. We’ll hear from Reimer and Colapinto.

Writer and traveler Patrick Symmes. He writes about Latin American politics, globalization and Third world travel for the magazines Harper’s, Outside, Wired, and Conde Nast Traveler. He’s written his first book: “Chasing Che: A Motorcycle Journey in Search of the Guevara Legend” (Vintage Books). Symmes traces the path of Ernesto “Che” Guevara who in 1952 traveled via motorcycle across South America from Argentina to Cuba and emerged a revolutionary. Guevara was an upper class Argentine medical student before he started the journey, but the poverty he saw radicalized him.

Charles Schulz, the creator of the cartoon strip "Peanuts" died Saturday night. He was 77 years old and had recently been diagnosed with colon cancer. He died the night before his final cartoon ran In the Sunday papers. We remember him with an excerpt of our 1990 Interview With him. (REBROADCAST from 12/18/90)

Legal expert on animal protection law, Steven Wise. He teaches "Animal Rights Law" at Harvard Law School and other colleges, and Is former president of the Animal Legal Defense Fund. In his new book "Rattling the Cage: Towards Legal Rights for Animals" (Perseus Books) he uses scientific research about the Intelligence and emotional capacity of animals to argue for their basic legal rights.

Book Critic Maureen Corrigan reviews two popular books from last year, that have just been published in paperback: Sonny Liston Was a Friend of Mine (Little Brown and Co.) by Thom Jones and The Intuitionist (Anchor Books) by Colson Whitehead.

Journalist Anthony Loyd. He was a special correspondent for The Times, covering wars In Chechnya, Afghanistan, Sierra Leone and Kosovo. In his new memoir "My War gone by, I miss It so" (Doubleday), he writes about his own desire to immerse himself In the chaos and drama of war, drawn by his own family's military history, his drug addiction, and despair. Loyd was born In 1966. Before becoming a journalist he was a platoon commander In Northern Ireland and the Gulf.

Loung Ung is the author of the memoir, “First They Killed My Father: a daughter of Cambodia remembers” (HarperCollins). UNG’s father had been a high-ranking government official, but in 1975 when Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge invaded Phnom Pen, her family fled, hiding in villages as peasants. But eventually her father was taken away and killed, and the family disperses to survive. Ung was seven years old and sent to a work camp, trained as a child soldier. Now UNG is National Spokesperson for the “Campaign for a Landmine Free World.”

Book Critic Maureen Corrigan reviews two new thrillers set in Washington, DC: Shame the Devil by George Pelecanos (Little Brown and Co.) and Chaos Theory by Gary Krist (Random House).

Children’s book writer Christopher Curtis has become the first writer to receive the prestigious Newberry Medal and the Coretta Scott King Author award for his book, “Bud, Not Buddy.” (Delacorte press). The story, set in the Depression Era, is about an orphan boy and his search for a home. Curtis is also the first African-American to win the Newbery Medal in 22 years. And he’s also author of “The Watsons Go to Birmingham” which was singled out for many awards. Before becoming a writer, CURTIS worked on an automobile assembly line in Flint, Michigan.

Prize winning author John Irving. He's turned his novel, "The Cider House Rules," into a movie. Irving writes about the Cider House Rules and the process of turning it into a screenplay, in "My Movie Business, A Memoir (Random House). Irving is the author of 9 novels, including "The World According to Garp," "A Prayer for Owen Meany," and "Hotel New Hampshire."