Books & Literature

Lewis H. Lapham, Editor of Harper's Magazine. His new book, Money and Class in America, explores the worship of the dollar - what Lapham calls our "civil religion."

David Aaron, former deputy director of the National Security Council. His experience as an arms negotiator in the Carter administration provides the background for State Scarlet, his novel about terrorism and nuclear weapons.

Critic-at-Large Laurie Stone explores the work by some of the leading performers in feminist and lesbian theater.

Novelist and translator Richard Lourie. His new novel is titled Zero Gravity and follows his successful debut First Loyalty. Lourie has been closely involved with the Russian and Polish underground intelligentsia and the emigre communities in America.

Cartoonist P.S. Mueller. His one-frame, absurdist work appears regularly in alternative newspapers around the country. His new book of cartoons is titled Spread of Terror.

Philippine journalist Ninotchka Rosca. For years, she worked as a journalist in the Philippines. After imprisonment by the Marcos regime, she went into political exile in the United States. She returned to the Philippines just as Marcos was losing power. She recalls that period in a book titled Endgame.

Book critic John Leonard reviews The Year of the Barricades: A Journey Through 1968 by the English journalist and historian David Caute.

Author Kate Simon. Simon is best known for her travel books (Kate Simon's Paris, New York: Places and Pleasures) and for her two vivid memoirs of coming of age in the New York City of the 1920s and 30s. The first, Bronx Primitive: Portraits in a Childhood, portrays the immigrant neighborhoods just after World War I. In the second, A Wider World: Portraits in an Adolescence, Simon recalls her tumultuous adolescence as she discovered the world beyond the neighborhoods of her youth.

Novelist Joseph Heller, author of Catch 22, Something Happened and No Laughing Matter, his 1985 account of being stricken with Guillain-Barre Syndrome, a neurological disease in which the peripheral nervous system is attacked. Within two weeks of the first symptoms, Heller could hardly breathe or swallow. It took him two years to relearn his basic motor functions. Heller's best known work is still his first, Catch 22, a satire of the military bureaucracy and the madness of war.

Ken Tucker reviews the home video release of "The Adventures of Tintin," a European comic strip that featured a boy reporter accompanied by a wire-haired terrier. The strip, which first appeared in 1929, captivated children and adults alike, winning the praise of Winston Churchill and Charles DeGaulle. In 1962, the strip was made into animated cartoons by the American producer Charles Shows.

Canadian author Jane Rule, one of the best known and most widely read lesbian writers. Rule is best known for her 1985 novel Desert of the Heart, which was later adapted into the movie "Desert Hearts." Her new book is titled Memory Board.

Exiled South African singer Miriam Makeba. At 20, she became the lead vocalist for a top South African band. And when her performances brought her international acclaim, she used her forum to speak out against Apartheid. She was subsequently banned from her native country, and then later from America for her marriage to the radical Stokely Carmichael. For the past 20 years, she's toured with her mentor, singer Harry Belafonte, and last year she toured with Paul Simon's Graceland Tour.

Author Jonathan Kozol. His new book, Rachel and Her Children, is about The Martinique Hotel, one of the largest welfare hotels in New York City. Kozol spent two years interviewing the families who lived there. Kozol's previous work has focused on inner city education and illiteracy.

Book critic John Leonard reviews Woodcutters, a novel by the Austrian writer Thomas Bernhard.

Actor Chuck Norris. He has changed his image from being a cult, martial arts film star to being America's all-round tough guy. His new movie is "Braddock: Missing in Action III." He has just written his autobiography. It's titled The Secret of Inner Strength - My Story.

Dr. David Elkind, a professor and author of books on child development. His new book, Miseducation: Preschoolers at Risk, warns of possible dangers to children who are pushed too hard to achieve too much at too early an age.

Singer Margaret Whiting. Her father, Richard Whiting, wrote many of her most popular songs, including "Too Marvelous for Words," "My Ideal," "She's Funny That Way," and "On The Good Ship Lollipop." Jerome Kern, Johnny Mercer and other great songwriters of the day were like uncles to her. She is now performing at the Algonquin Hotel in New York City.

Book critic John Leonard reviews Mothers of Invention, a book about the the unrecognized role women had in the technological breakthroughs of the modern era. The authors are Ethlie Ann Vare and Greg Ptacek.

Jazz clarinetist and alto and soprano saxophonist Bob Wilber. Wilber is also a composer and arranger; He arranged the music for the film "The Cotton Club." And he's just completed his autobiography. It's scheduled for release later this spring and is titled "Music Was Not Enough." This Saturday, Wilber will lead a tribute at Carnegie Hall to the late Benny Goodman, the king of the jazz clarinet. It's the 50th anniversary of Goodman's famed concert there.

Fiction and science writer David Quammen. His column "Natural Acts" appears regularly in Outside Magazine. His new collection of short stories is called Blood Line, and his second collection of science essays will be published soon.