Books

Korn writes about health and medical issues for "Self," "the Chicago Tribune Magazine," and other publications. He has a new book "Lovejoy: A Year in the Life of an Abortion Clinic," which tells of the protests and controversy surrounding the Lovejoy Surgicenter, an abortion clinic in Portland, Oregon.

Byock talks about his new book "Dying Well: The Prospect of Growth at the End of Life." He is President of the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine and a prominent spokesman for the hospice industry. His book explores how the end of life, whether a person is suffering pain or not, can be an opportunity for deepened spiritual growth and reconciliation with others.

Journalist Martin Mayer writes about finance, advertising, education and law, but his expertise is in finance. His written many books. His latest: "The Bankers: The Next Generation: The New Worlds of Money, Credit and Banking in an Electronic Age" is a rewritten, updated version of his best selling book on banking which he wrote 20 years ago.

Legato is the Director of the Partnership for Women's Health at Columbia University. She's co-authored the new book "What Women Need to Know: From Headaches to Heart Disease and Everything In Between."

Newspaper columnist and the etiquette expert, Judith Martin, otherwise known as Miss Manners. Her new book is "Miss Manners' Basic Training: Communication" (Crown News) about the social issues of phone answering machines, e-mail, and cyberspace.

British writer Jonathan Raban. His new book "Bad Land: An American Romance" is based on memoirs, diaries, photographs and letters of immigrants who in the early 1900s traveled to Montana to homestead. Raban himself is something of an immigrant; he settled in Seattle in 1990.

Theologian and author Rev. Peter J. Gomes. He has written the new book "The Good Book: Reading The Bible with Mind and Heart." Gomes is black and gay, and brings a unique and sometimes controversial interpretation to the Bible. He has been a minister at Harvard University's Memorial Church since 1974. Time Magazine called him "one of the seven best preachers in America."

Muller cowrote the new book, "Grindhouse: The Forbidden World of 'Adults Only' Cinema." It's a visual history of adult cinema and all it's paraphernalia from the 1920s thru the 1970s. Many of the items used in the book Muller rescued from a dumpster of an old theatre in San Francisco. Muller is a journalist and is founder and director of the San Francisco Historical Boxing Museum.

Laura Joplin is the younger sister of the rock legend Janis Joplin. Her new book, "Love XX Janis," was inspired by a bundle of letters Laura found of her sister's. This is the first time the letters are published. Laura is six years younger than Janis, and was 21 when Janis died. There's a new episode of the VH1 documentary series "Legends" about Janis Joplin, in which Laura reads some of the letters of her sister.

Nunez's debut autobiographical novel was "A Feather on the Breath of God." Her newest is "Naked Sleeper." (HarperCollins). One reviewer calls it "a fine novel of maturing at 40." Another writes that it's "a steady, superbly insightful study of a life as quietly complex as the reader's own."