Books

Joe Klein has written a biography of folk musician Woody Guthrie. He joins the show to discuss Guthrie's life, career, and family. His book is titled "Woody Guthrie: A Life."

Rebecca Sinkler is the editor of the Sunday Book Page at the Philadelphia Inquirer. She recently published an article about the best books of 1980. Sinkler joins the show to discuss the trends of the year (a merging of fact and fiction, biography, and historical fiction), putting together a newspaper page, and the experiences that led her to criticism.

Italian journalist and novelist Oriana Fallaci is known for her interviews with controversial political figures. Her latest work is about her former lover Alexandros Panagoulis, infamous for an attempt to assassinate a Greek dictator. Her book "A Man" covers his life and torture in prison, his enemies, and his death, which she believes to be a politically motivated murder. The book is partly fictionalized.

Film critic Leonard Maltin has two new releases. The first is an updated and revised edition of his "T.V. Movies," an index of films shown on television. The second is about silent cartoons and animations and is titled "Of Mice and Magic." He joins the show to discuss both.

Madelon Bedell has just published the first in a two-volume biography of "Little Women" writer Louisa May Alcott and the Alcott family, "The Alcotts: Biography of a Family." She discusses not only the Alcotts, but also the social movements and philosophies that surrounded the family.

Jerre Mangione is an author and the director of Creative Writing at the University of Pennsylvania. His newest book is "An Ethnic at Large: A Memoir of America in the Thirties and Forties." He's currently writing a book about Italian-Americans. He joins the show to discuss the recent enforcement of an IRS regulation that requires that publishers destroy or remainder their back-stock in order to take certain deductions. Mangione's book "The Dream and the Deal" nearly faced that fate.

Terry Robinson was a physical trainer to the stars, working at MGM. He was Mario Lanza's trainer and close friend. He has recently written a biography of the tenor "Lanza, His Tragic Life."

Tepilit Ole Saitoti is a Maasai warrior and conservationist who was the subject of the film "Man of Serengetti." After the film, the Kenyan earned a degree in creative writing in the U. S. He joins the show to discuss his new book of photography with Carol Beckwith, "Maasai."

Calvin Tomkins is a writer and art critic for the New Yorker. His latest work, "Off the Wall: Robert Rauschenberg and the Art World of Our Time," is a biography of both Rauschenberg and the American visual arts of the 1940s-1970s.

Author Elizabeth Janeway explores how power structures create social divisions between the men and women both in U.S. and abroad. She considers what cultural and legal changes can be made to elevate the status of women from all backgrounds.