Memoir

Writer Judith Shulevitz started observing Shabbat because of her own ambivalence about the traditional weekly day of rest. Her own experiences with the ritual -- as well as its larger historical context -- are examined in her new book, The Sabbath World: Glimpses of a Different Order of Time.

The Iranian-American journalist was imprisoned in Iran, interrogated, tried and eventually released. But the controversy continues. Saver says she confessed to her crimes in order to get out of jail but asserts she did nothing wrong. Her new book Between Two Worlds is an account of her time in captivity.

The book by the conservative strategist is called Courage and Consequence: My Life as a Conservative in the Fight. Rove tells Fresh Air the decision to go to war in Iraq in 2003 was not based on wrong information from the Bush administration, but was based on wrong information from the intelligence community.

Melissa Febos graduated from college with straight A's and a prestigious internship. She also led a secret life as a dominatrix. Her new memoir, Whip Smart, details her time working in a sex dungeon in midtown Manhattan. She describes what it was like to work for four years at the upscale S&M house.

After Hustvedt suffered several unexplainable seizure-like episodes that defied medical diagnoses, she decided to chart her experiences -- and the murky intersection between mind, brain and body -- in a new book, The Shaking Woman or A History of My Nerves.

Attorney David Dow has spent his career representing inmates who have been sentenced to death. Despite his efforts, many of his clients have been executed — and most of them were guilty. In his new memoir, The Autobiography of an Execution, Dow details what it's like to become emotionally involved with the people living on death row.

It was in 1967, on her first day in New York, that 20-year-old aspiring poet Patti Smith met fellow artist Robert Mapplethorpe. Their friendship, romance and creative collaboration began on that day and lasted until Mapplethorpe's death in 1989.

Widely considered on of the greatest tennis players of all time, Andre Agassi admits in a new autobiography that he hates tennis, "with a dark and secret passion." Always has. He's here to talk with host Terry Gross about what he calls the "contradictions" at the core of his life.

Working for Japan's Yomiuri Shinbone newspaper, reporter Jake Adelstein uncovered a world unknown to many of the Japanese public, let alone to foreigners: the world of organized crime. He details its landscape -- and the dangers of covering it -- in a new memoir.

The Liar's Club, Mary Karr's memoir about her hardscrabble childhood in Texas, was named one of the best books of 1995. In her new book, Lit, Karr details her early adult years and her struggles with alcohol, depression and motherhood.