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05:03

Books to Read During the Summer Travel Season

Book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews "Manhattan '45" by Jan Morris (Oxford University Press), "Into Thin Air" by Jon Krakauer (Random House) and "Travelers' Tales Guides" (to Hong Kong, Paris, and San Francisco (O'Reilly and Associates.)

Review
32:02

British Film Actor Pete Postlethwaite

Postlethwaite played the incarcerated father of Gerry Conlon in "In the Name of the Father." Currently he can be seen in the new film "The Lost World," Steven Speilberg's sequel to "Jurassic Park," and "Brassed Off" a film about how members of a brass band respond to the economic decline of a small mining community in Yorkshire, England.

Interview
19:22

The Sons of Frank Capra Honor His Centennial

Frank Capra, Jr. and Tom Capra, the sons of film director Frank Capra, whose films include "It Happened One Night," "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," and "It's a Wonderful Life." The two have produced a new documentary about their famous father, "Frank Capra's American Dream." This year marks the 100th anniversary of Frank Capra's birth.

20:49

Novelist Rick Moody Envisions a "Purple America"

Moody's work has been compared to Cheever and Updike. His latest novel is "Purple America" (Little, Brown & Co.). His previous novel "The Ice Storm" has been made into a film which just won the best screenplay adaption award at the Cannes Film Festival.

Interview
12:02

Why College Costs So Much

Journalist and College Professor Anne Matthews talks about why college tuition is skyrocketing, and how campus culture and student expectations have changed over the years. Her new book is called "Bright College Years."

Interview
21:37

Arlie Hochschild on "When Work Becomes Home and Home Becomes Work"

The University of California at Berkeley Professor of Sociology has a new book called "The Time Bind: When Work Becomes Home & Home Becomes Work." It's about how work has become the refuge for harried Americans who find the demands at home more difficult than those at work. It's based on her research, interviewing employees for three years at a Fortune 500 company.

Interview
05:18

A New Biography Focuses on What Yeats Did, Not Who He Was

Book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews R.F Foster's biography "W.B. Yeats a Life : The Apprentice Mage 1865-1914 Vol 1. This first volume covers the years 1865 through 1914, a time during which Yeats met his great love and the subject of some of his finest poems, Maude Gonne. This is also the period in which the poet, along with Lady Gregory and John Millington Synge created the famous Abbey Theater and wrote some of his finest poems.

Review
44:09

DMC on the Changing Landscape of Rap Music and Culture

Rap vocalist Darryl McDaniels of RUN-DMC talks about the group's success. McDaniels is the "DMC" of the group. They were the first rap group to earn gold, platinum and multi-platinum albums. Their most recent album is "Down with The King" released in 1994. But RUN-DMC is expected to release their next album later this year. The group is credited with bringing new fashions, new dances, and new language to popular culture.

Interview
04:32

Laugh Tracks Get Worse

TV Critic David Bianculli talks about the history of television laugh tracks and a new development in their usage.

Commentary
12:44

How Civil War Soldiers Faced (or Fled) the Violence of Combat

Historian James McPherson is a Professor of American History at Princeton University. He's written eleven books about the Civil War, including his Pulitzer Prize winning book, "Battle Cry of Freedom." His latest book is "For Cause & Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War" (Oxford University Press). Drawing on 25,000 letters and 250 private diaries, McPherson looks at why so many soldiers willingly risked their lives to fight in the war.

Interview
32:34

An American Poet on His Family's Survival of the Armenian Genocide

Peter Balakian is Professor of English at Colgate University, and the author of a new memoir "Black Dog of Fate: An American Son Uncovers His Armenian Past. He grew up in an affluent New Jersey suburb, unaware of the tragedy that was part of his family's past: the genocide of a million Armenians in 1915 by the Ottoman Turkish government. He started to learn about the past when he discovered the document of his grandmother's human rights suit against the Turkish government, and the lost memoir of his great uncle, a bishop in the Armenian church.

Interview

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