Books & Literature

Richard is of cajun, creole and French descent. His award winning collection of short stories is called "Ice at the Bottom of the World". His new novel "Fishboy" is about a boy's sea journey, "replete with ghosts, sea creatures and violent shipmates". Richard's prose style has been singled out for praise, with one critic hailing the novel as "an eloquent fever dream".

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

Business journalist Mark Pendergrast. His new book is "For God, Country, and Coca-Cola" shows how the soft drink became the world's most widely distributed product, and a symbol for the Western way of Life.

Journalist Stan Sesser is a reporter covering Southeast Asia for the New Yorker. He has collected some of those pieces in a new book "The Lands of Charm and Cruelty: Travels in Southeast Asia." He discusses the recent elections in Cambodia which featured violence, twenty political parties and massive voter turnout

Halberstam has a new book -- a social, political, economic, and cultural history of what he considers the most pivotal decade of the century -- called "The Fifties." His other books include, "The Best and the Brightest" and "The Powers That Be."

Journalist David Sheff gained unprecedented access to the toy wizards at the Nintendo Corporation. His new book "Game's Over" explores the Japanese domination of the video-game market.

Spark has been said to "uphold the great tradition of the English Catholic novel." She's a prolific writer, having written 19 novels, including "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie," and "Momento Mori." Spark has a new memoir about her first 39 years, called "Curriculum Vitae." It includes stories about school teacher Miss Christina Kay (the character of Jean Brodie was based on her), Spark's marriage at 19 to a man 13 years her senior, their life in Africa, and Spark's early literary career. She's now 74 years old.

Maureen Corrigan reviews "King of Card," which she says fares only slightly better than the recent, lackluster offerings in bookstores.

Allende is one of the few women in the male-dominated literary world of Latin American. She's the niece of Chile's ousted President Salvador Allende, who was pushed out during a 1973 coup and assassinated. Isabel fled to Venezuela. She later moved to the U.S. after falling in love with an American, and now lives in California. Her new book, "The Infinite Plan," is her first about the United States.

Authors Seth Cagin and Philip Dray. Their new book is "Between Earth and Sky: How CFCs Changed Our World and Endangered the Ozone Layer." It's about how CFCs (or chlorofluorocarbons) went from being the "miracle compound" to the the biggest threat to the ozone layer. CFCs came into being in 1928 and made possible the mass use of refrigerators and air conditioners. By the 1950s they were used in aerosol sprays and in the manufacture of Sytrofoam. But by 1974, scientists began to see their deleterious environmental effects.

Book critic John Leonard reviews "Drums Along the Congo," by travel writer Rory Nugent.

Former staff members on The Johnny Carson Show, Mike Huber and Barbara Bowen. They were, respectively, correspondent and co-correspondent for Carson and had the job of reading letters sent from fans and non-fans of the show. They collected the most memorable ones in the new book, "Dear Johnny."

Lamott has written a new book about being a mother for the first time (and single, at that), called "Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son's First Year." One reviewer says the book is "an emotional roller coaster ride. Painfully honest, laced with humor and poetry and moments of profound insight." Lamott is also the author of the novels, "Hard Laughter," and "All New People."

Harvard Law professor Elizabeth Bartholet, author of "Family Bonds: Adoption & the Politics of Parenting." In her book, Bartholet --the mother of two adopted Peruvian boys-- examines transracial, single and older-parent families, and challenges current societal priorities about parenting, adoption and infertility.

Professor Gayle Pemberton of Princeton University reviews Black Women in White America, edited by Gerda Lerner. It was originally published in 1972.

Language commentator Geoffrey Nunberg on why, even in the digital age, books will never be obsolete.

Levine is an Emmy Award-winning screenwriter and has been head writer for two of television's greatest shows: MASH and Cheers. He trained himself to be a baseball announcer out of a childhood love for the game, and has written a new book about his season as a broadcaster for the Baltimore Orioles: "It's Gone!...No, Wait a Minute." He's now an announcer for the Seattle Mariners.

Writer and criminal defense lawyer, Alfredo Vea, Jr. He's just written his first book, a novel, "La Maravilla." It's based on his own life growing up in the desert outside of Phoenix, where Mexican, Indian, Spanish, and Afro-American influences converged.

Barnhardt is getting a lot of press and praise for his new novel, "Gospel," an 800-page saga about a present-day search for a lost gospel. It's been described as an "intellectual detective novel. . . written on the grand scale." Barnhardt's first novel was "Emma Who Saved My Life."

Maureen Corrigan reviews the new novel by Cathleen Schine, about a woman who falls in love with a French manuscript.