Segments by Date

Critic Milo Miles reviews the new four-DVD set, Popeye the Sailor 1933-1938. The animated series features the classic Popeye cartoons by the Fleischer Brothers studios. Miles calls the set a first-rate reissue.

Journalist David Barboza covers business and culture in China as a foreign correspondent for The New York Times. He joins Terry Gross for a discussion of the recent string of recalls and product-safety scandals coming out of that country.

With the moderating, centrist voice of Sandra Day O'Connor now gone from the Supreme Court, a conservative counterrevolution that had been stymied for 20 years has now begun.

So says Jeffrey Toobin in his new book The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court. His book is about how this counterrevolution developed. It's also a behind-the-scenes look at the court, its recent decisions and the personalities of the justices behind them.

For 18 years, from 1987 to 2006, Alan Greenspan was chair of the Federal Reserve Board — the United States' central banker, in charge of steering the nation's monetary policy. His every word was scrutinized by markets, read like tea leaves by market makers and investors looking for clues to his thoughts on the economy's health.

Fresh Air's book critic reviews Two Lives: Gertrude and Alice, Janet Malcom's joint biography of Gertrude Stein and her longtime companion, Alice B. Toklas.

When Daniel Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon Papers to The New York Times in 1971, the Nixon White House tried to discredit him. Among other things, Nixon loyalists burglarized the office of Ellsberg's psychiatrist.

On this edition of Fresh Air, we spend the entire hour with Bud Krogh, who went to prison for his role in the Ellsberg affair — and who has a new memoir. It's called Integrity: Good People, Bad Choices, and Life Lessons from the White House.

Fresh Air's film critic reviews Paul Haggis' In the Valley of Elah, which stars Tommy Lee Jones as a former military MP — and the father of a young soldier who's gone AWOL after returning from active duty in Iraq.

Viggo Mortensen stars in Eastern Promises, a new David Cronenberg thriller set in London, in the dangerous underworld of sex trafficking.

The film was written by Steve Knight, who wrote the screenplay for Dirty Pretty Things.

Cronenberg and Mortensen's last collaboration was the acclaimed 2005 film A History of Violence.

Fresh Air's music critic Milo Miles considers the work of the art-punk band Sonic Youth; the group's 1988 album Daydream Nation has just been reissued in a deluxe double-CD edition.

Fresh Air's resident linguist considers how we use the words "civility" and "incivility."

Thomas Ricks, senior Pentagon correspondent for The Washington Post, discusses this week's long-awaited progress report from Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker, the top two American officials in Iraq.

Ricks is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and the author of the best-selling book Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq. It's just come out in paperback.

Fresh Air's critic-at-large tells us about the wartime aviation novels of British writer Derek Robinson, who served in the Royal Air Force. His books include Goshawk Squadron, Damned Good Show, A Good, Clean Fight, and Piece of Cake.

Charles Reynolds teaches at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and directs research into late-life mood disorders; now he has co-written a book about depression in the elderly and how to treat it. It's titled Living Longer Depression Free: A Family Guide to Recognizing, Treating, and Preventing Depression in Later Life.

We love low prices, sure, but we frown at the things companies do to get us good deals — like paying low wages. In his book Supercapitalism, economist Robert Reich looks at the divided mind of the consumer and citizen.

Following up on their platinum debut album, Into the Rush, the sister act Aly & AJ serves up an album heavy on the teen-relationship tunes.

Insomniatic is just the latest in a multimedia onslaught from the sisters Michalka that includes TV roles, Aly & AJ books, a clothing line, an Xbox game, dolls and the inevitable calendar.

Fresh Air's rock critic has a review of the album.

Journalist and historian Burton Hersh has followed the Kennedy family for more than 35 years. His latest book is a study of the behind-the-scenes power struggles among the Kennedys and longtime FBI director J. Edgar Hoover.

Hersh writes that as attorney general, Robert F. Kennedy did his best to keep Hoover — technically his subordinate — on a short leash. But knowledge of Kennedy family secrets gave Hoover, always a master manipulator, the upper hand.

Fresh Air's book critic reviews Away, an extraordinary novel of immigration and epic adventure from Amy Bloom, the author of Come to Me and A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You.

Fresh Air's TV critic previews a new series, a new special and a season premiere — all on HBO this weekend. They are, respectively:

Tell Me You Love Me, about a therapist and the couples she counsels
Alive Day Memories: Home from Iraq, in which Sopranos star James Gandolfini (the special's executive producer) interviews 10 injured war vets
Curb Your Enthusiasm, which begins its sixth season.

Fresh Air's film critic reviews 3:10 to Yuma, starring Russell Crowe and Christian Bale.

It's a remake of the 1957 movie of the same title — which was in turn based on an Elmore Leonard short story.

As head of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, Jack Goldsmith led the team of lawyers that advises the presidency on the limits of executive power. During his tenure, he battled the Bush White House on the now-infamous "torture memos," as well as on issues of surveillance and the detention and trial of suspected terrorists. Goldsmith resigned his post after nine months.