Our guest, Father John Barkemeyer, left a parish on Chicago's South Side to become an Army chaplain in 2003, the year U.S. and coalition forces invaded Iraq. There's a shortage of Catholic priests in the Army, and for much of his current tour in Iraq, Barkemeyer has been the service's only Catholic chaplain in the province of Anbar.

Neurologist and writer Oliver Sacks, whose book of case studies, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, has been made into a music theater production. Sacks is also the author of Awakenings, a work about victims of sleeping sickness, to whom he administered the experimental drug L-dopa.

Commentator Maureen Corrigan reviews "Ordinary Time: Cycles in Faith, Marriage, and Renewal" the new autobiography by Nancy Mairs, who is dying of multiple sclerosis.

Temple Grandin is one of the nation’s top designers of livestock facilities. She is also autistic. In her book, Thinking in Pictures: and other reports from my life with Autism she describes how her inner-autistic world has led her to develop animal empathy. She is currently an assistant professor of animal sciences at Colorado State University in Fort Collins. Her new book is published by Doubleday 1995. Grandin was the subject of Oliver Sack’s 1993 New Yorker article An Anthropologist on Mars.

Mike Hudson is a contributing editor for "Southern Exposure," a public policy magazine. He recently wrote a series of stories on the "poverty industry" -- how pawn shops, finance companies, and rent-to-own stores charge high interest rates, sometimes as high as 35%, to people who can almost never pay them back.

Durang is best-known for his controversial play, "Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All For You." A new collection of six of his plays has just come out called "Christopher Durang Explains It All For You." He joins Fresh Air to talk about some of his successes and failures, and his frustrations with New York theater.

Cuban-born poet Heberto Padilla (air-BARE-toe puh-DEE-uh). He was a friend of Castro and an early supporter of the revolution in Cuba. But later he became disillusioned and was imprisoned by Castro as a counter-revolutionary in 1971. He left Cuba in 1980 and has been living and teaching in the U.S. He has a new memoir, "Self Portrait of the Other," published by Farrar, Straus, and Giroux.

Poet, writer, and teacher Nancy Mairs. She's a Catholic feminist, who started out Protestant, and who late in life became a feminist. She calls herself, "the connoisseur of catastrophe." She's known for writing honestly about her struggles with multiple sclerosis, depression, and the life-threatening illness of her husband, also about being a woman, a mother, and a wife. Her newest book of personal essays is "Ordinary Time," (Beacon). One reviewer calls it "a small miracle of honesty mediated by dignity and humor."

Eley Williams tells the story of two word-mad characters who work for the same dictionary publisher 120 years apart. This novel is perfect for anyone who loves puns, crosswords and witty writing.

Fred de Cordova, executive producer of "The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson." His autobiography, "Johnny Came Lately," is a behind-the-scenes tell-all about the workings of one of television's longest-running and highest rated shows. de Cordova credits include directing Ronald Reagan in "Bedtime for Bonzo," directing "The Jack Benny Show," "The Burns and Allen Show," and "My Three Sons."

It's commonly thought that the Catholic Church fought heroically against the fascists in Italy. But in The Pope and Mussolini, historian David Kertzer says the church actually lent organizational strength and moral legitimacy to Mussolini's regime.

In 2007, journalist and former soldier Kelly Kennedy embedded with the U.S. Army's Charlie Company in Iraq. In 15 months, the 26th Infantry Regiment had the most casualties of any U.S. battalion since Vietnam. Kennedy details her year with the troops in her book They Fought for Each Other.

Screenwriter Mike White and his father, gay rights activist Mel White, recently danced, ran and bobsledded around the globe as part of The Amazing Race. The duo talks about their relationship and reality-TV adventures.

Writer Ken Follett. He was only 27 when his 11th novel, "Eye of the Needle," became a huge bestseller. When it was later adapted into a hit film, it only enhanced Follett's reputation as a master of the thriller genre. His other novels include "Triple" and "The Key to Rebecca." Follett's latest effort is a departure from this successful formula. "The Pillars of the Earth" is a historical novel set in 12th century England; its plot centers on the building of a cathedral.

Biographer Tad Szulc has a new book called Pope John Paul II: The Biography. It details the Pope's early years in Poland through his climb to the papacy after being elevated to archbishop in 1963. Szulc traveled with the Pope extensively, had access to many of his private papers and interviewed many of the Pope's old schoolmates, friends and fellow priests. Szulc is a former New York Times bureau chief.

Part I of the Fresh Air interview with Cameron Crowe. His new movie, Say Anything, is about a young man coming to terms with adult love. The film is Crowe's directorial debut.

Shawn O'Donnell is a former ex-gay and a Christian. He was involved with Exodus for many years, before he left the program and to live as gay man. His story was part of the documentary Fish Can't Fly.

Patrice Banks is now a mechanic, and the owner of a successful auto clinic, but there was a time when she avoided taking her own car in for routine maintenance.

In his new novel, The Testament of Mary, Irish author Colm Toibin imagines Mary's life 20 years after the crucifixion, as she wonders what she might have done differently to ease her son's suffering. "I felt that I was Mary," he says. "I was her consciousness, watching the thing happening."