Books & Literature

Science writer James Gleick ("GLICK"). His new book "Faster: The Acceleration of Just About Everything" (Pantheon) is about the accelerating pace of modern life. He writes about how technology has created the feeling that life moves too fast, but that we have become "addicted" to the pace and might as well learn to enjoy it.

New York Times reporter Douglas Frantz and his wife, journalist Catherine Collins. They've collaborated on a new book about their two years living in Celebration, the city Disney built from scratch in Florida. Their book is "Celebration U.S.A.: Living in Disney's Brave New Town" (Henry Holt & Co.)

Bob Zmuda ("ZMOO-da")is the co-executive producer of the new film "Man on the Moon" about the late comic Andy Kaufman. Zmuda was also Kaufman's writer, co-conspirator, and close friend. In the 1970s Kaufman was best known for his portrayal of the sweet-natured foreign-born Latka on the TV sitcom "Taxi." On stage he took on mind-bending personas like an obnoxious master of ceremonies, or a wrestler who fought women and challenged them on stage, or an Elvis impersonator. Often he left his audience perplexed as to whether or not he was for real.

Botanist Margaret Lowman. She's a pioneer in research on forest canopies, i.e, the treetops - their inhabitants, flowers, fruits and morality. Her new book is "Life in the Treetops: Adventures of a Woman in Field Biology" (Yale Book News). LOWMAN is director of research and conservation at the Marie Selby Botanical Gardens in Sarasota, Florida.

Writer and flight attendant Elliott Neal Hester. He writes the bimonthly column "Out of the Blue" for the online magazine, Salon. He's also working on an upcoming book about flying the "not so friendly skies."

Linguist Geoff Nunberg reviews the new edition of the venerable grammer book "The Elements of Style."

Actors Ralph and Joseph Fiennes They're best known for their respective roles in "The English Patient" and "Shakespeare in Love." Their mother, Jennifer Lash, was an accomplished novelist in England. Her last novel, "Blood Ties" was written as she was dying of breast cancer. Her sons talk about their mother. Their sister Sophie, also joins the conversation.

Writer Richard Davenport-Hines is the author of the new book "Gothic: Four Hundred Years of Excess, Horror, Evil and Ruin" (North Point Press) which traces the history and evolution of the Gothic sensibility. Davenport-Hines is the author of five other books including "Auden" He's written for The (London) Times, The Observer, and The Independent.

Linguist Geoff Nunberg considers the staying power of new words that enter the lexicon.

Boston Globe sports writer Dan Shaughnessy who has written the new book "Fenway: A Biography in Words and Pictures." (Houghton Mifflin) The baseball park is scheduled to be torn down and rebuilt in early part of the next century. Shaughnessy has also written "The Curse of the Bambino," "At Fenway," "Seeing Red," "Ever Green," and "One Strike Away."

Adventure writer Randy Wayne White. He wrote the "Out There" column for "Outside" magazine for many years. He's now a monthly columnist for "Men's Health" and is the author of the new book, "The Sharks of Lake Nicaragua: True tales of adventure, travel, and fishing." (The Lyons Press).

Journalist Paul Solotaroff is a former editor at The Village Voice. He's written a new book that follows the progress of a group in therapy in New York City. It's called, "Group: Six People In Search of a Life." (Riverhead Books)

Writer Andrew Smith has written a new book about the food that is a staple at movie theatres - popcorn. It's called "Popped Culture: A Social History of Popcorn in America" (University of South Carolina Press).

Birder and naturalist Scott Weidensaul author of "Living on the Wind" (North Point Press) discusses the habits of migratory birds, what makes them do what they do, and how they're able to do it.

Novelist A.M. Homes. Her new book is "Music for Torching" (Rob Weisbach Books/William Morrow). Her previous novels are "The End of Alice," "In a Country of Mothers," and "Jack." She teaches writing programs at Columbia University and the New School.

World War Two combat veteran Robert Kotlowitz has written about his experiences in "Before Their Time: A Memoir." 1997 Hard cover and just re-printed this year on Anchor Books. Kotlowitz was part of a platoon that was ordered to charge the German front, an order that killed all but 3 men. His previous books included: The Boardwalk, His Master's Voice, Sea Changes, and Somewhere Else. (THIS CONTINUES INTO THE SECOND HALF OF THE SHOW.)

Novelist, screenwriter and biographer A.E. Hotchner. His memoir "Papa Hemingway" (Carroll & Graff) about his friend and colleague, Ernest Hemingway has just been republished. Hotchner met Hemingway when he was a 20-something journalist, on assignment to interview Hemingway for Cosmopolitan magazine. That first interview in 1948 developed into a 14 year friendship.

Scott Dikkers is editor-in-chief of The Onion, an alternative weekly based in Madison, Wisconsin. He along with the editors of The Onion, have published the new book "Our Dumb Century" (Three Rivers Press) It's a parody of newspaper headlines spanning this century.

Book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews Ernest Hemingway's novel "True at First Light."

British writer Pat Barker is best known for her "Regeneration" trilogy set in the shadows of WWI. In 1995,
she received the Booker Prize for its concluding novel, The Ghost Road. She has written the new novel "Another World." (Farrar, Straus, Giroux) Pat Barker grew up poor in the industrial North, once remarking that her decision to write about war was a deliberate response to patronizing reviews of her working-class settings in her earlier novels.