Books & Literature

Robert Brustein, theater critic for The New Republic since 1959. Brustein founded the Yale Repertory Theater and the American Repertory Theater at Harvard. His new book of essays is titled Who Needs Theatre: Dramatic Opinions.

Author Toni Morrison, acclaimed for her honest depiction of black life in her books, Song of Solomon, Sula, and Tar Baby. Her first novel in seven years has just been published. It's titled Beloved.

Adam Hochschild, founder of the leftist magazine "Mother Jones." He's written a memoir about his ambivalent relationship with his father, an industrialist who operated a string of gold and diamond mines in South Africa.

Writer Jane Smiley. Her newest work, a combination of novella and short story, probes the disappointments and loss of middle age. It is titled The Age of Grief.

Film producer Ismail Merchant, who, with film director James Ivory, is responsible for films like "The Bostonians," and "Room with a View." His upcoming film, "Maurice," is, like "Room with a View," an adaptation of an E.M. Forster novel.

Thomas "Hollywood" Henderson, a star player for the Dallas Cowboys throughout the 70s. He fell victim to a cocaine addiction and was one of the first professional athletes to admit to his problem.

Book Critic John Leonard will review What Ever Happened to Gloomy Gus of the Chicago Bears, the new novel by Robert Coover.

Syndicated cartoonist Matt Groening. His strip, titled "Life in Hell," appears in alternative papers around the country. His animated characters (rabbits) also appear on TV's "The Tracey Ullman Show."

Francine Du Plessix Gray, journalist and novelist. She has written extensively about women and fashion. Her new book is a collection of essays that cover religion, the idea of home and the current moral climate.

Book Critic John Leonard will review Beloved, the new novel by Toni Morrison, the author of Tar Baby and Song of Solomon, winner of the 1978 Book Critics Circle Award for fiction.

Michael Denneny a senior editor at St. Martin's Press. His latest project is a small press called Stonewall Inn Editions, specializing in gay literature.

Enter James Randi, magician and debunker of people with claims to extrasensory perception.

Barry Gifford, publisher and founder of Black Lizard Press. The press specializes in reprints of hard-boiled detective fiction, complete with the original book jackets.

Guest commentator David Marc will tackle the argument that television is to blame for the decline in reading.

Jehan Sadat, wife of the late Egyptian President Anwar Sadat.

Writer Jay Stevens has a new book about the creation of LSD in the 1940s, research into its therapeutic and weaponized potential in the 1950s, and its role in the 1960s counterculture--fueled in part by the influence of people like Timothy Leary, Ken Kesey and Aldous Huxley.

While vacationing in France, linguist Geoff Nunberg visited a museum exhibit showcasing an early edition of the Grand Larousse dictionary. He considers the cultural significance of this text, and what it says about how the French view language.

Fresh Air book critic John Leonard reviews a new book by Robin W. Winks, which tells the story of the OSS and CIA's recruitment of scholars at Yale University.

Poet Mark Halliday is inspired as much by popular culture and music as he is by the work of other poets. His latest collection is called Little Star.

Scientist and writer James Trefil has a new book about meteorology called Meditations at Sunset. He hopes that a better understanding of the rules of physics will help people appreciate the mysteries of nature.