Books

Editor Tom Kuntz and reporter Phil Kuntz. Their new book “The Sinatra Files: The Life of an American Icon Under Government Surveillance” (Three Rivers Press) excerpts and analyzes portions of the FBI’s massive file on Frank Sinatra. The file is 1,275 pages long and was begun in the mid 1940s and lasted until 1972. Tom Kuntz is the editor of “Word for Word,” a column in The New York Times Week in Review section. Phil Kuntz is a staff reporter for The Wall Street Journal.

Nadine Cohodas is the author of “Spinning Blues into Gold: the Chess Brothers and the Legendary Chess Records” (St. Martin’s Press). It’s the story of brothers Leonard and Phil Chess, Jewish immigrants from Poland, who knew little about music, but somehow created the influential blues label, Chess Records. Muddy Waters helped them see the potential in the music and they went on to record Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Willie Dixon, Chuck Berry, and others. Chess Records was located in Chicago.

Book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews two new novels about China: “Becoming Madame Mao”(Houghton Mifflin) a fictional biography by Anchee Min, and the detective novel, “Death of a Red Heroine” (Soho) by Qui Xialong.

Jim DeRogatis is the author of “Let it Blurt: The Life & Times of Lester Bangs, America’s Greatest Rock Critic” (Broadway Books). Bangs wrote about rock ‘n’ roll for the Rolling Stone, Cream, and The Village Voice. DeROGATIS describes him as, “the great gonzo journalist, gutter poet, and romantic visionary of rock writing—its Hunter S. Thompson, Charles Bukowski, and Jack Kerouac all rolled into one.”

Book Critic Maureen Corrigan gives us her picks for the best summer reading.

Book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews “White Teeth” by Zadie Smith. It’s Smith’s debut novel about a couple of World War 2 veterans and their families.

Rudy Behlmer (BELL-mur) is the editor of “Memo from David O. Selznick,” (Modern Library) a new collection of the producer’s private letters, telegrams and memos. The making of “Gone With the Wind” and other film classics are documented in this revealing look at the movie business in its early years. This book is part of a series of film books being reprinted by Martin Scorsese. Also in the “Modern Library: The Movies” series are “The Making of 2001: A Space Odyssey,” “Agee on Film” by James Agee, and “The Art of the Moving Picture,” by Vachel Lindsay.

Writer Stacy Schiff. She’s the author of “Vera” (now in paperback, Modern Library), about Vera Nabokov, and her 52 year marriage to Russian writer Vladimir Nabokov, the author of “Lolita”. The book is a literary story and a love story, revealing how important Vera was in shaping Nabokov’s work, and how devoted the two were to each other. (THIS INTERVIEW CONTINUES THRU THE END OF THE SHOW)

Three veteran book editors discuss the state of publishing today. . .when mergers create mega publishing houses, the bottom-line dominates decision making, and e-technology threatens the book itself. The three are: Michael Korda, editor-in chief of Simon & Schuster, Robert Loomis, executive editor at Random House, and Jonathan Galassi, editor-in-chief at Farrar, Straus and Giroux. (THIS INTERVIEW CONTINUES INTO THE SECOND HALF OF THE SHOW).

Professor of Architecture and Gerontolgy Victor Regnier (Ruh-NEAR) teaches at the University of Southern California. In 1997 he published a book (Assisted Living Housing for the Elderly: Design Innovations from the United States and Europe” (Wiley) comparing the Northern European and U.S. approaches to caring for the elderly. The European model helps the elderly to stay in their homes, with the help of assisted living programs. This week he is presenting a paper on the subject at the AIA (American Institute of Architects) convention in Philadelphia.