Book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews The Artificial Silk Girl (Other Press) the 1932 German novel written by Irmgard Keun which has just been newly translated and published.
He is one of few western reporters to interview Osama bin Laden, which he did in 1998. Hes collaborated on the new book, The Cell: Inside the 9/11 Plot, and Why the FBI and CIA Failed to Stop It. (Hyperion). In the book they retrace the movements of al-Qaeda leading up to the September 11th attacks.
Guitarist, singer, songwriter Wayne Kramer. In the late 1960s he founded the MC5, a Detroit band considered to be the prototype for punk rock. By 1972 the band had burned out. In between then and now, Kramer did time in jail for drugs, teamed up with Don and David Was to found the group Was (Not Was), and began a solo career. His new solo album is Adult World.
He died August 14th at the age of 78. The cause was cancer of the liver. The Corcoran Gallery in Washington DC recently ran the first major retrospective of Rivers work, covering five decades of his output (it ends August 19th). Rivers has been called the father of Pop Art, and is considered one of the most important artists in the figurative tradition. He was part of a loosely knit association of poets and painters who were young, poor and ambitious in New York in the 50's.
He won a Pulitzer Prize for his novel Empire Falls which was also a national bestseller. His subject matter is working-class unpretentious people, but as one reviewer writes he transforms 'every day people and seemingly ordinary events - into the quintessential'. He's written five novels in all, including Mohawk, The Risk Pool, and Nobodys Fool (which was made into a film starring Paul Newman). His latest book is a collection of stories, The Whores Child and Other Stories.
His new book is Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago. It*s about a 1995 heat wave in that city which proved to be an insidious natural disaster. Streets buckled, electric power blew, and over 700 people died. Klinenberg is an associate professor of Sociology at New York University.
Comedian Dave Attell . He*s the host of Comedy Central*s Insomniac with Dave Attell. It airs Wednesday nights at 10:30 pm. Attell explores American after-hours culture, traveling to many cities to film his show.
While working at a blueprint shop in Charleston, South Carolina, a customer brought in some Confederate money to order a blowup. The imagery shocked Jones. The money showed slaves. Jones began to collect the brown and gray money with slaves picking cotton, corn and tobacco and loading barrels cheerfully. He then created large scale full color paintings based on the images. The art is now on display at America's Black Holocaust Museum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Aerospace consultant Nick Cook, author of the new book, The Hunt for Zero Point: Inside the Classified World of Antigravity Technology. (Broadway Books/ Random House) In the book, Cook tracks down the secret history of anti-gravity research. It*s technology that defies the laws of physics. Cook discovered that during WWII, the Nazis claimed to have been close to antigravity technology. The U.S. government allegedly conducted antigravity research in the 1950s and 60s. Cook is former Aviation Editor for the military affairs journal, Jane's Defense Weekly.
Evolutionary biologist and journalist Olivia Judson. In her new guide to the evolutionary biology of sex, Judson, explores the sex lives of animals and insects. Posing as Dr Tatiana, sex-advice columnist, she answers 'letters' posted by such creatures as the fairy wren, the stalk-eyed fly, and the African elephant. Her new book is Dr Tatianas Sex Advice to All Creation.. Judson has also written for The Economist,Nature, and Science.
Writer, explorer, and deep-sea diver Barry Clifford's new book is The Lost Fleet: The Discovery of a Sunken Armada from the Golden Age of Piracy (William Morrow). The lost fleet was a group of French ships that sank in 1678 on the reef of Las Aves island, 100 miles off the Venezuelan coast. The fleet, as well as a small pirate army, was shipwrecked. The event launched "the golden age of piracy" that plagued maritimers for 50 years. Clifford researched the disaster and was part of the team that located the armada. Clifford's previous book was Expedition Whydah.
Father James Martin is associate editor of America the national Catholic magazine. Hes written a new memoir,Searching for God at Ground Zero, (Sheed & Ward) about the days following the September 11th attacks when he abandoned his editing duties to go and be with the rescue workers at the site of the ruined World Trade Center. Hes also the author of a memoir about his spiritual journey from the corporate world to the priesthood: In Good Company: The Fast Track from the Corporate World to Poverty, Chastity and Obedience
