Places & Travel

Two guests discuss their work in Hollywood.

The sixty-year-old writer talks with Terry Gross about his new book "Angela's Ashes." The memoir recounts his childhood experience growing up in the slums of Ireland. McCourt lives in New York.

Part 2 of Terry's interview with the influential blues guitarists and singers. In this segment, he talks about making it to Memphis, a city that expanded his musical horizons.

Book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews Leaving a Doll's House, a memoir by British actress and Philip Roth's ex-wife Claire Bloom.

Music artist Jim Dickinson talks about his friend and legendary Memphis deejay, Dewey Philips. Philips is best known as the first person to play Elvis Presley on the air. He also pushed the racial barriers of the time by playing a mix of music by black and white artists.

Deneuve talks about her new movie "Les Voleures" (Thieves). Some of her best known films include "Belle De Jour," "Repulsion," "Indochine," and "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg." She was born in Paris in 1943.

Book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews "The Orchard on Fire" by British writer Shena MacKay.

Memphis based musician Sid Selvidge. He's a guitarist whose music synthesizes classic blues styles and Appalachian traditions. Selvidge has been part of the Memphis music scene for 30 years, learning from such Delta blues legends as Bukka White, and Mississippi Fred McDowell. Selvidge is also senior producer of the new public radio blues show, "Beale Street Caravan" which premieres on October 1.

The Nobel Prize winner and activist talks with Terry about his newest book "The Open Sore of a Continent: A Personal Narrative of the Nigerian Crisis." It's been nearly a year since the Nigerian military government executed dissident writer Ken Saro-Wiwa. The killing sparked international protests that today has left Nigeria politically isolated. The events that led up to the execution in November 1995 mark Nigeria's decline from a thriving post-colonial state to its present military dictatorship.

Washington Post reporter Leon Dash won a Pulitzer Prize in 1994 for his eight part series "Rosa Lee's Story." He has turned that into the new book ,"Rosa Lee: A Mother and Her Family in Urban America." It shows Lee's day to day life in one of Washington D.C.'s poorest neighborhoods.

Book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews "Angela's Ashes," a new memoir by Frank McCourt. It's the 60-year-old author's first book.

Journalist Peter Godwin. His new memoir is "Mukiwa: A White Boy in Africa," about growing up in Rhodesia in 1964 as the British colony is collapsing. Godwin was formerly a foreign correspondent for the London Sunday Times. He now makes television documentaries for the BBC.

Breedlove plays with the Jamaican group, The Skatalites. They're credited with creating the music known as ska, a precursor to reggae, which is often mistaken for reggae. The group got their start in the 1960s. Breedlove is an American musician who worked with Lionel Hampton, and began playing with The Skatalites about seven years ago. The Skatalites have a new album, "Greetings from Skamania."

Linguist Geoff Nunberg compares the different ways France and the U.S. covered the Olympics -- and what they say about these countries' attitudes toward their respective languages.

Film critic Lisa Schwarzbaum reviews Hong Kong marshall arts master Jackie Chan's new film, "Supercop."

Commentator Milo Miles has this profile of late Nigerian Juju music master I.K. Dairo. His music became very popular in Africa in the 1960's.

Book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews "Typhoid Mary," by Judith Walzer Leavitt, about the woman unwittingly responsible for an outbreak of typhoid fever in New York City.

Rock Critic Ken Tucker reviews two books on punk rock: "Please Kill Me: The Uncensored History of Punk," by Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain, and the novel "Go Now" by Richard Hell.

Fresh Air film critic John Power reviews the movie version of John Grisham's novel, "A Time To Kill."

Assistant Professor of Political Science, Sarah Mendelson. She spent a year in Moscow working for the National Democratic Institute. Her work helped the Russian reformist political parties in their preparation of the Parliamentary and Presidential elections. The goal of the Institute is to bring modern Western campaign techniques into Russian elections. Mendelson also talks to Terry about being a young American expatriate in the former Soviet Union. She currently teaches poltiical science at the State University of New York at Albany.