Society & Culture

Mirta Ojito is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist for The New York Times. Ojito and her family were part of the Mariel boatlift out of Cuba. Her new memoir is Finding Mañana: A Memoir of a Cuban Exodus. Ojito has interviewed Fidel Castro himself in researching the boatlift.

Evangelista, a bail bondsman, starred in the now-defunct reality TV series, Family Bonds, on HBO. Evangelista was formerly an insurance underwriter who had a mid-life crisis and decided to go for a more colorful job.

Writer David Reynolds is the author of the new biography John Brown: Abolitionist: The Man who Killed Slavery, Sparked the Civil War, and Seeded Civil Rights. Reynold's book is considered to be a sympathetic look at the man who he says framed the issue of slavery in stark, uncompromising terms.

The new film from director Todd Solondz, Palindromes, begins with a funeral for Dawn Weiner, the memorable, much-maligned 11-year-old from the 1995 Solondz film Welcome to the Dollhouse. The main character of the new film is Dawn's cousin, but she's played by seven different and distinct actors.

Book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews The Position, the new novel by Meg Wolitzer about the children of parents who feature themselves in a sex manual. Previous books from Wolitzer include Surrender, Dorothy and The Wife.

Film critic David Edelstein reviews the French film Look at Me. It won a best screenplay prize at the Cannes Film Festival.

Linguist Geoff Nunberg considers the adjectives pro and con used to describe the President's social security proposal.

Actress, activist, and former fitness guru Jane Fonda has been in the spotlight since her childhood. Now she's written a candid new memoir, My Life So Far, offering details of her relationship with her father, her ex-husbands, her films, and her part in the 1960s anti-war movement.

Rock critic Ed Ward finds a forgotten chapter of American pop history: the 1940s sound of East Los Angeles. Hear original recordings of vintage Latin music collected on the new CD Pachuco Boogie, from Arhoolie Records.

Criminal defense attorney Johnnie Cochran died Tuesday at age 67 of cancer, after having been diagnosed in 2003 with an inoperable brain tumor. In 1995, Cochran won O.J. Simpson a not-guilty verdict in the slayings of his wife Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman. Over the years, Cochran defended celebrities as well as lesser-known individuals. He represented football great Jim Brown, as well as rappers Tupac Shakur, Snoop Dogg and Sean Combs. (Originial airdate: 10/10/96)

Writer Samuel G. Freedman's new book is Who She Was: My Search for My Mother's Life. Freedman's mother died many years ago, when he was just 18, and as he approached his mother's age when she died, he decided to find out all about her life. The result is a narrative fueled by facts.

Film critic David Edelstein reviews Old Boy, a South Korean film that won the Grand Jury Prize at last year's Cannes Film Festival.

Her new movie, which she wrote and directed, is The Ballad of Jack and Rose, starring Miller's husband, Daniel Day-Lewis, along with Camilla Belle and Catherine Keener. It's about an aging hippie father and his daughter who are living on an abandoned commune but come face-to-face with the contemporary world. Miller is the daughter of the legendary playwright Arthur Miller.

Wagner hangs out with the rich and famous, and then writes satirical novels based on Los Angeles life. His new book is The Chrysanthemum Palace. The three main characters are actors who are the children of wealthy, successful parents. Wagner is known for his dark wit and nasty portrayals of show business elite.

Judith Warner is the author of the new book Perfect Madness: Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety. In it she writes about the "choking cocktail of guilt and anxiety and resentment and regret" that is poisoning motherhood for American women. Warner is a former special correspondent for Newsweek in Paris.

Film critic David Edelstein reviews Melinda and Melinda the new Woody Allen film, starring Will Ferrell.

Former Marine Capt. Brian Steidle has been in the Darfur region of Western Sudan monitoring the humanitarian crisis there for the African Union. Steidle says there's no doubt that Sudan is in the midst of genocide.

We remember Gene Wilder who died Sunday at the age of 83, by listening back to his 2005 interview in which he talks about working with Mel Brooks, growing up, and his marriage to Gilda Radner.

Film critic David Edelstein reviews The Upside of Anger starring Joan Allen and Kevin Costner.

Book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews A Changed Man, the new novel by Francine Prose.