Books

Journalist Sam Dillon. Dillon was part of the Miami Herald's team of reporters that won a Pulitzer Prize for their reporting on the Iran Contra scandal. His new book, "Comandos: The CIA and Nicaragua's Contra Rebels," looks at the history of the contras during their ten year struggle with the Sandinistas. ( published by Henry Holt).

Film critic Pauline Kael talk to us from her house in Massachusetts. Kael spent years reviewing movies for The New Yorker. Her final collection of New Yorker reviews has just been published. It's called "Movie Love: Complete Reviews 1988-1991. (It's published by William Abrahams).

Comedian Nora Dunn. Dunn was a cast member of Saturday Night Live for 6 years, and portrayed such roles as the vapid talk show host Pat Stevens, the lounge singing Sweeney Sisters, and French sex kitten Babette. She was also at the center of controversy when she refused to appear on SNL when Andrew Dice Clay was the guest host. Dunn has written a new book, in the personas of her characters, called "Nobody's Rib." (It's published by Harper Perennial).

June Reinisch the Director of the Kinsey Institute, and the principle author of "The Kinsey Institute New Report on Sex." In it, she debunks many myths Americans have about sex, and she discusses what she calls the "sexual illiteracy" of many Americans. (It's published by St. Martin's Press).

Editor and columnist Raymond Sokolov. His new book is "Why We Eat What We Eat: How the Encounter Between the New World and the Old Changed the Way Everyone on the Planet Eats." (published by Summit Books) His premise is that Christopher Columbus initiated a worldwide culinary revolution when he discovered the New World. Sokolov is the editor of the Leisure & Arts page of "The Wall Street Journal," a columnist for "Natural History" magazine, and a contributor to "Food and Wine" magazine. (Interview by Marty Moss-Coane).

Writer David Rieff (pronounced "reef"). his new book, "Los Angeles: Capital of the Third World," looks at how the millions of poor immigrants that have come to the Los Angeles area in the past two decades have changed the shape of that city...changing it from the "City of Dreams" that's long been L.A.'s popular image, to a much poorer, problem-ridden,and diverse, place. Rieff says something similar is in store for many other American cities. (The book's published by Simon and Schuster).

Actor David Carradine. He's still known as the star of the 70s TV series, "Kung Fu." Carradine's written a new book about his personal journey through the martial arts, called "Spirit of Shaolin." (It's published by Tuttle).

Author Shelby Steele. Steele's best-selling book, "The Content of Our Character," is a personal analysis of racism in America. Steele says it's time Blacks in America stopped using racial victimization as a crutch and started to rely on their own efforts to gain access to the mainstream. (It's newly published in paperback by Harper).

We discuss the upcoming confirmation hearings of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court with New York Times columnist Anthony Lewis. In the late 50s and early 60s, Lewis covered the Supreme Court for the Times. His new book, "Make No Law," examines one of those cases, the Sullivan libel case against the Times. (It's published by Random House).

In the wake of Baltic independence, we examine the history of the region with professor Walter Clemens, who's just published the book, Baltic Independence and Russian Empire (St. Martin's Press).