Books & Literature

Cartoonist Art Spiegelman, author of "Maus," for which he won a Pulitzer Prize, and "Maus II." The two book-length comics are accounts of Spiegelman's s parents' experiences in the Holocaust. He is also co-founder and editor of "Raw," a magazine of avant-garde comics. He has now illustrated "The Wild Party: The Lost Classic by Joseph Moncure March."

Panter is well known in the punk-rock scene, and was a founding member and writer of "Pee-Wee's Playhouse." She is a member of the punk band Honk if Yer Horny. In 1992, Panter co-founded The Bohemian Women's Political Alliance, a feminist organization of "the teenagers who dressed in black, the bad girls who climbed out of [their] bedroom windows at dark and caught taxis home at dawn."

Journalist James Traub has written "City on a Hill: Testing the American Dream at City College." This is an exploration of the "open admissions policy" that was implemented at the College in 1970, and the effects this policy has had on the school. Traub examined remedial classes and struggling students, and talked to administrators and professors including Leonard Jeffries, the controversial Chair of the Black Studies Department.

Writer and professor Michael Eric Dyson wrote "Making Malcolm: The Myth and Meaning of Malcolm X." The book explores the different sides of Malcolm X and how his influence is felt today. Dyson is also the author of "Reflecting Black," and a professor of Communications Studies at the University of North Carolina.

Commentator Maureen Corrigan reviews "Remember Laughter," Neil Grauer's biography of James Thurber.

White is the author of seven books, including "Forgetting Elena," "States of Desire: Travels in Gay America," and "Genet: A Biography," for which he was awarded the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Lamda Literary Award. He has a new collection of essays from the past 25 years, "The Burning Library," many of which focus on gay life in America.

Carter has a new book called "Helping Yourself Help Others." She talks with Terry about helping others and about providing care to the sick and her life since she and her husband left the White House.

Classical music critic Lloyd Schwartz is also a poet. Today, he reads an autobiographical poem called "She Forgets."

The former congresswoman became Louisiana's first woman member of Congress in 1972. She was elected after her husband, then House majority leader Hale Boggs, died in a plane crash. Boggs was an advocate for civil rights and women's issues before her retirement in 1990. She is the mother of NPR and ABC-TV's Cokie Roberts, Washington lobbyist Thomas Hale Boggs, and the late Barbara Sigmund, who was mayor of Princeton, New Jersey. Boggs has new autobiography is called "Washington Through a Purple Veil: Memoirs of a Southern Woman."

Gordy and his record label made stars out of musicians including Diana Ross and the Supremes, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, and Michael Jackson. He has written his autobiography, "To Be Loved: The Music, the Magic, the Memories of Motown: An Autobiography."

Rock critic Ken Tucker reviews "Our Cancer Year," about a couple's battle with cancer, by Harvey Pekar and Joyce Brabner.

Commentator Maureen Corrigan reviews "Fables of Abundance: A Cultural History of Advertising in America," by Jackson Lears.

Reynolds is the star of "Evening Shade," as well as the films as "Deliverance" and "Smokey and the Bandit." He's written his autobiography, titled "My Life." Terry spoke with Reynolds before he cut short his recent book tour.

Dagoberto Gilb with a commentary on fatherhood in light of his newfound literary fame.

There's a new four-CD boxed set of Ginsberg's work, called "Holy Soul Jelly Roll - Songs and Poems." Terry talks to him about the readings featured on these recordings.

"Wall Street Journal" senior writer Jane Mayer is co-author of "Strange Justice: The Selling of Clarence Thomas,: She and fellow journalist Jill Abramson, investigated sexual harassment allegations against Thomas made by Anita Hill. They found other women who had had similar experiences with Thomas, but who were never called to testify. They wanted to write an objective account of the process, and they bring their harshest criticism on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Critic Maureen Corrigan reviews "Borderliners" the new novel by Danish writer Peter Hoeg, author of "Smillas Sense of Smell."

Wolff has been nominated for the National Book Award for his memoir "In Pharaoh's Army: Memories of the Lost War." The book is an account of Wolff's tour in Vietnam. Woff is also the author of two short story collections, a novella, and "This Boy's Life," a memoir about his childhood.

Writer Howard Norman has been nominated for the National Book Award for his new novel "The Bird Artist." The book takes place in Newfoundland in 1911, and is about an artist who murders the town's lighthouse keeper. Norman is also the author of a short story collection and "The Northern Lights," a National Book Award Nominee in 1987

Block reads from from his new novel, "A Long Line of Dead Men" It's the newest in his series about his detective hero, Matthew Scudder.