Books & Literature

Writer Nicholson Baker. His new book, "U and I," is a quirky look at how writer John Updike has shaped Baker's life

Book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews "Seizing the Enigma" by David Kahn. It's about the Enigma Project--the Allies' attempt to break Nazi codes during World War II. Corrigan says it's the only moment in history where scholars helped win the war.

Cooper just won PEN's Ernest Hemingway Foundation Award for a first work of fiction for his collection of personal essays, "Maps to Anywhere."

Book critic John Leonard reviews "Gaza: a Year in the Intifada." It's journalist Gloria Emerson's account of the life of Palestinians living under Israeli rule.

Garbus recently defended Peter Matthiessen's controversial book, "In the Spirit of Crazy Horse," against two separate libel suits. Among many other projects, Garbus is currently helping to write a new constitution for Czechoslovakia.

Pollan is executive editor of "Harper's Magazine." He's written a new book, "Second Nature: A Gardener's Education," in which he examines the relationship between Americans and their lawns and gardens.

Mira is a third-generation Japanese-American who, in 1984, visited Japan for the first time. His own grandfather left that country at the turn of the century, and during World War II Mura's parents were interned in a relocation camp. He's written a memoir about his heritage, called "Turning Japanese: Memoirs of a Sansei."

Book critic John Leonard reviews Alberto Manguel's novel, "News From a Foreign Country Came," about families and terrorism in cities around the world.

Brown delivers what he calls "The Big Picture," a tongue-in-cheek political commentary on Saturday Night Live. He's just collected those commentaries in a new book, also caled "The Big Picture."

Cisneros' first book, "The House on Mango Street," told the story of Esperanza Cordero, a young girl growing up in the Latino quarter of Chicago. Cisneros has a new collection of stories, called "Woman Hollering Creek."

Novelist Mary Gordon has a new collection of essays, "Good Boys and Dead Girls: And Other Essays." Catholicism has been a constant theme in her novels, which include: "Final Payment," and "The Company of Women." American fiction by men, Catholicism, and abortion are some of the issues she write about in her new book

Book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews "A Morning for Flamingos," David Lee Burke's fourth novel in a series about a Cajun detective in New Orleans.

Fresh Air producer Amy Salit talks with Indian writer Gita Mehta. Mehta wrote the best-selling novel, "Raj," which has just been released in paperback.

Faith Sale of PEN, the international writers group, and Christine Serfaty, whose husband is the Moroccan writer, Abraham Serfaty. He's been in jail for 17 years because of his writing. PEN just gave Serfaty its "Freedom to Write" award to call attention to his plight.

Book critic John Leonard reviews Sarah Maitland's new novel, which masterfully weaves together real dragons, the end of childhood, cancer, and Christian symbolism in a narrative that somehow leads to salvation.

Michael Jackson (No, not THAT Michael Jackson). He's a beer expert who's written the "Pocket Guide to Beer (The Connoisseur's companion to over 1000 Beers of the World)," by Simon & Schuster. He lives in England and has also written "The New World Guide to Beer.

Book critic Maureen Corrigan review Kitty Kelley's salacious Nancy Reagan: The Unauthorized Biography. Corrigan, who is no fan of the former first lady, says it's perversely entertaining.

Book critic John Leonard reviews the new collection of essays by veteran Polish journalist Ryszard Kapuscinski, called The Soccer Game.

Critic Maureen Corrigan reviews "Mary Diana Dods: A Gentleman and a Scholar" by Betty T. Bennett. Dods was a Victorian writer who advanced her literary career by posing as men named David Lyndsay and Walter Sholto Douglas.

Barney Rosset published such controversial works as "Tropic of Cancer" and "Last Exit to Brooklyn," as well as Victorian literature considered by some to be pornographic Several years ago he was forced out of Grove and started his own publishing house, Blue Moon.