Books & Literature

Cowell is one of the judges on the talent show American Idol, a spin-off of the show he co-created in Britain, Pop Idol. The show has made him famous for his brutally frank criticism. Cowell has spent 25 years in the music industry, and is currently with BMG. His new book is Simon Cowell: I Don't Mean to Be Rude, But...

Book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews The Gatekeeper, the new memoir by British academic superstar Terry Eagleton. Also, his new book After Theory (to be published this month in the United States) is a recant of his widely read 1983 book Literary Theory: An Introduction.

Fresh Air's book critic gives us her list of the top books of the year.

His first novel, recently published, is Old School. Wolff is best known for his memoir This Boy's Life and short stories, including The Barracks Thief.

Corrigan's choices include: The Company You Keep by Neil Gordon; Family Circle: The Boudins and the Aristocracy of the Left by Susan Braudy; and They Marched Into Sunlight: War and Peace, Vietnam and America, October 1967 by David Maraniss.

His new book is Skylark: The Life and Times of Johnny Mercer. Furia documents the life of the legendary lyricist whose songs include Moon River, Come Rain or Come Shine and Skylark. From the 1930s to the 1950s, Mercer dominated the popular song charts. Furia is a professor of creative writing at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. He's also written biographies of Irving Berlin and Ira Gershwin. The interview continues throughout the entire show.

Her new book is Jung: A Biography. Bair chronicles the life and work of the influential Swiss psychologist, Carl Jung. Bair won the National Book Award for her biography of Samuel Beckett, and she's also written books about the lives of Anais Nin and Simone de Beauvoir.

Corrigan reviews several reprints of books by female detective fiction writers, including Anna Katherine Green's That Affair Next Door: And, Lost Man's Lane, Metta Fuller Victor's The Dead Letter & The Figure Eight, (both from Duke University Press) and re-issues from The Feminist Press, Skyscraper by Faith Baldwin, In a Lonely Place by Dorothy B. Hughes and The Girls in 3-B by Valerie Taylor.

His new novel is Screaming With the Cannibals. Maynard has been an assignment writer for Reader's Digest for over a decade. He's also written for many other magazines and newspapers. Screaming with the Cannibals is a sequel to his 1988 debut novel, Crum.

Film critic David Edelstein reviews The Cat in the Hat, starring Mike Myers and Alec Baldwin.

His novel, The Known World, is receiving critical acclaim and has been selected as a finalist for the National Book Award for fiction. It's about a black farmer and former slave who becomes a slave owner. Jones made his literary debut more than 10 years ago with Lost in the City, a collection of short stories about struggling black residents of Washington, D.C. It won the Lannan Literary Award. Until recently Jones made his living as a proofreader for the trade magazine Tax Notes.

Book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews Magic Circles: The Beatles in Dream and History by Devin McKinney.

Ettlinger's portrait photography appears on many book jackets. Over the years her subjects have been Truman Capote, Tom Wolfe, William Styron, Raymond Carver, Joyce Carol Oates, Sue Miller, Sarah Vowell and many more. A collection of her portraits, Author Photo: Portraits, 1983-2002 has just been published.

His new book Brundibar is based on a Czech opera of the same name. It was set to music by Hans Krasa, who was imprisoned in the Nazi concentration camp Terezin and later killed in Auschwitz. The opera was performed 55 times by the children of Terezin. Sendak has also written and illustrated the classic children's books Where the Wild Things Are, In The Night Kitchen and Outside Over There. Time magazine has said, "For Sendak, visiting the land of the very young is not something that requires a visa.

The Pernice Brothers' album, Yours, Mine & Ours, was one of the most acclaimed of 2003. Joe Pernice's new book, Meat is Murder, is part of a collection of short books inspired by music albums. The book's title comes from the album of the same name by The Smiths.

Shehadeh is the author of the new memoir When the Birds Stopped Singing: Life in Ramallah Under Siege. His previous book is the memoir, Strangers in the House: Coming of Age in Occupied Palestine. Shehadeh is a founder of Al-Haq, a pioneering, nonpartisan human rights organization.

Book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews American Woman, the new novel by Susan Choi.

Syndicated cartoonist Aron McGruder. His strip “The Boondocks” follows the escapades of Huey and Riley two brothers from the inner city sent to live with their grandfather in a Chicago surburb, where most of their neighbors are white. The strip is read in over 35 newspapers nationwide. MCGRUDER has been publishing it for four years and he hasn’t been shy about controvery. In his strip he’s taken on everyone from George W. Bush to rapper P. Diddy. MCGRUDER has several collections of the strip: “The Boondocks: Because I Know You don’t Read the Newspaper,” “Fresh For ’01. . .

Maureen Corrigan reviews The Fifth Book of Peace by Maxine Hong Kingston.

She earned wide critical and popular acclaim and an Emmy for her work on The Garry Moore Show (from 1959-62). The Carol Burnett Show debuted in 1967 and won 22 Emmys in a run of more than a decade. She has starred or appeared in a number of TV movies and specials. In December, she'll be a Kennedy Center honoree for her body of work. In 1981 she struck a blow for fellow celebrities by winning a lawsuit against The National Enquirer tabloid. Her memoir One More Time was recently republished in a paperback edition. There's also a DVD collection of The Carol Burnett Show.