Writer John Updike. He is one of the most-read, most-published, most-analyzed American writers. His works include The Witches of Eastwick, The Coup, Rabbit Run and Rabbit Redux. Updike's new novel, S, is a modern story drawn from Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter.
Rock Critic Ken Tucker reviews "Naked," the long-awaited album from The Talking Heads. The album experiments with a variety of genres, including Funk, African Pop and Salsa.
Film critic Stephen Schiff reviews "D.O.A.," the new movie starring Dennis Quaid and Meg Ryan. Quaid plays a college professor who is poisoned and has 24 hours before his imminent death to find his murderer.
Gene LePere. Her book, Never Pass This Way Again, documents her arrest and month-long detention in Turkey for allegedly smuggling archeological artifacts.
Bill Buford, editor of Granta Magazine, a literary publication that offers journalism, criticism and fiction. Authors whose work the magazine has published include American short-story writer Raymond Carver, Czech novelist Milan Kundera, and Nobel Prize-winner Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
Traveler Eric Hansen. In 1982, Hansen set out alone across Borneo, an island in Indonesia composed almost entirely of rain forests and populated by natives who have had the least amount of of contact with westerners. Hansen's account of his travels is contained in the book Stranger in the Forest: A Foot Across Borneo. Hansen has also travelled to North Africa, Afghanistan, Nepal, India and Southeast Asia.
Classical music critic Lloyd Schwartz reviews the career of British conductor Jeffrey Tate. Tate has been crippled since birth. His first career was medicine. Lloyd reviews a new recording featuring Tate and the English Chamber Orchestra playing Haydn's Military Symphony No. 100 and the Drum Roll Symphony.
Journalist and screenwriter Dan Wakefield. His new book, Returning: A Spiritual Journey, describes his encounters with alcoholism, atheism, psychoanalysis, and his ultimate rediscovery of spiritual belief.
Rock historian Ed Ward profiles Louis Jordan. Between 1930 and 1950, Jordan spearheaded the rhythm and blues sound. He was one of the very first crossover artists, appealing to both blacks and whites. Ed focuses on the Louis Jordan who pioneered rap music.
Independent jazz producer Orrin Keepnews. For the past 30 years he's produced the music of jazz artists like Thelonious Monk, Bill Evans, McCoy Tyner and Wes Montgomery. He was the founder of two important jazz labels, Riverside Records and Milestone Records. This year, he won a Grammy for the liner notes of a new box set of the complete Riverside recordings of Thelonious Monk.
Jazz Critic Kevin Whitehead reviews "Cracked Sidewalks" the new album from tenor saxophonist Rich Halley and his sextet. Halley lives in Oregon, a reminder, Kevin says, that not all jazz is spawned in New York.
Ian Whitcomb, an Englishman in love with American music. Since first coming to the United States in the early 60s, he has devoted his career to promoting and keeping alive the tradition of American popular song, particularly those from the Tin Pan Alley era.. His new book, Irving Berlin and Ragtime America, salutes the music of Irving Berlin, who will celebrate his 100th birthday this year.
Television Critic David Bianculli reviews "The Wonder Years," a new ABC series. The show is an extended flashback to 1968 and the junior high school days of Daniel Stern ("Diner" and "Breaking Away"), the show's narrator, and Fred Savage ("The Princess Bride"), who plays Stern as he was in 1968.
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Nick Kotz. His new book, Wild Blue Yonder: Money, Politics and the B-1 Bomber, is an in-depth examination of how cost over-runs, politics and s basic pork barrel mentality has compromised the making of the B-1 bomber. Kotz's study of military leadership won the National Magazine Award for Public Service. He also authored the highly acclaimed book, Let Them Eat Promises.
Peter Sichrovsky. His new book, Strangers in Their Own Land: Young Jews in Germany and Austria Today, is an exploration of the lives and motivations of the European Jews who either stayed or returned to to live in countries whose people brought on them the horrors of the Holocaust. In the introduction, Sichrovsky says that his central question in researching the book was, "What does it mean for a Jew to live in Germany today?" His latest book Born Guilty: Children of Nazi Families explores "the other side."
Rap star Kool Moe Dee. When he first started rapping on park benches in the lat 70s, rap was a fad few believed would stick. Now rap has gone mainstream. Kool Moe Dee is considered the dean of the old school.
Ken Tucker reviews "Penn and Teller's Cruel Tricks for Dear Friends," an interactive home video cassette that features some of the magic duo's favorite scams.
