Books & Literature

Writer Jessica Hagedorn. Her debut novel, "The Dogeaters," is set amid the mixture of cultures that makes up the Philippines. Hagedorn herself was born and raised in the Philippines. Prior to this novel, she's been a poet, performance artist, playwright, and commentator for "Crossroads." ("The Dogeaters" is published by Pantheon).

Poet VIikram Seth (VICK-ram SATE) He was born in India and has lived in England, China and the U.S. He's just completed his first novel -- a novel written in verse, "The Golden Gate" (published by Knopf). David Rieff of "Vanity Fair" says of the book, "At once a bittersweet love story, a wickedly funny novel of manners and an unsentimental meditation on mortality and the nuclear abyss."

Commentator Maureen Corrigan reviews two new autobiographies by women: "How I Became Hettie Jones," by Hettie Jones, and "Love and Other Infectious Diseases," by Molly Haskell.

Book critic John Leonard reviews "The Quest for El Cid," by Richard Fletcher.

Writer and critic Nelson George. George is one of this county's most prominent chroniclers of black music. He's the black music editor at Billboard, is a columnist for Playboy, and regularly writes for the Village Voice and Essence. George was the editor of a new book called, "Stop the Violence," a collaboration of today's top rappers working to end black on black violence. George's earlier books include a history of Motown called "Where Did Our Love Go?" and "The Death of Rhythm and Blues."

Journalist Morley Safer. His first book is "Flashbacks: On Returning to Vietnam" (published by Random House). In 1965 Safer went to Vietnam as CBS'S correspondent. His famous report of U.S. marines torching the Cam Ne hamlet in August 1965 angered the White House with threats to expose SAFER'S "Communist ties" unless CBS fired him. Safer went back to Vietnam in 1989 as a correspondent for 60 Minutes, and out of this trip came "Flashbacks," a look back at the war and an examination of Vietnam today.

Photographer Jan Staller. His photographs capture the well-traveled outskirts of cities. His subjects are viaducts, tunnels, piers, and subway entrances - the places we pass on the way to somewhere else. He's just published a new collection of such photographs taken around New York over the past ten years, "Frontier New York" published by Hudson Hills Press. In the book's introduction Paul Goldberger writes, "To look at New York through Staller's photographs is to feel that the familiar city has become somehow mystical, ephemeral, almost haunted."

Baseball Hall-of-Fame pitcher Bob Feller. Some call him the fastest pitcher in history---taking the mound for the Cleveland Indians when just a teenager, Feller racked up 266 wins, struck out over 2500 batters, and pitched the only opening day no-hitter in major league history. In his new book, "Now Pitching, Bob Feller: A Baseball Memoir," he recounts his more 50 years in the game. (The book is co-authored with writer Bill Gilbert and published by Birch Lane Press).

Actor, comedian, filmmaker, and author Michael Palin. In the fall of 1988, Palin set out to recreate the journey Jules Verne described in "Around the World in 80 Days." Palin circled the globe by using just about every means of transportation except airplane (since that wasn't available in Verne's time). Palin turned his journey into an 8-part TV BBC series (it aired in this country on the A&E network) and a book that's a bestseller in England.

Book critic John Leonard reviews Deirdre Bair's new biography of Simone de Beauvoir.

Reporter Lawrence Weschler. Weschler is a staff writer for the "New Yorker," where he writes on human rights, political, and cultural issues. Weschler's new book, "A Miracle, A Universe: Settling Accounts with Torturers," (published by Pantheon) looks at how victims of torture in Brazil and Uruguay worked to bring their captors activities to light (portions of the book ran as a five-part series in the New Yorker). Weschler's earlier books include "The Passion of Poland," and "Shapinsky's Karma."

Novelist Tom Robbins. His latest book "Skinny Legs and All," (Bantam Books) involves a young Virginia artist, Ellen Cherry, who moves to New York to pursue an art career and ends up a waitress at Isaac & Ishmael's, a restaurant owned by an Arab and a Jew which sits across the street from the United Nations. Other characters of note: Salome, the teenage belly dancer, and some magical objects: a conch, a stick, a sock, a can o'beans, and a spoon.

Book critic John Leonard reviews "Solomon Gursky Was Here," the new novel by Canadian writer Mordecai Richler. Richler's also the author of "The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz" and "Joshua Then and Now."

Journalist Ernest Volkman. He and co-author John Cummings' new book "Goombata: The Improbable Rise and Fall of John Gotti and His Gang," chronicles the history of the mofia godfather once proclaimed the "Teflon Don." Since 1986, when Gotti took over the leadership of the Gambino crime family, he's been acquitted in three criminal trials. The latest was an assault and conspiracy trial in New York, in which he was acquitted February 9, 1990.

Scientist Barry Commoner, founder and director of the Center for the Biology of Natural Systems in New York. For years Commoner has been at the forefront of the ecology movement. "Time" magazine once dubbed him the "Paul Revere of Ecology." Early on he crusaded about the dangers of nuclear fallout. In 1970 he helped organize the first Earth Day, and a year later published "The Closing Circle," an examination of the affect of technology on the environment.

British writer Fay Weldon. She's most famous for her book, "The Life and Loves of a She-Devil," which was recently made into a movie. Weldon's novels deal with certain aspects of the female experience. In her first novel, "Fat Women's Joke" (1967), an over-weight middle-aged woman leaves her husband and struggles for self-respect in a world where youth and sex appeal count. And the heroine of "Down Among the Women," is an unwed mother. In all, Weldon has written fourteen novels and story collections.

Journalist and mountain climber Jon Krakauer. His first book, "Eiger Dreams," is a collection of his articles from magazines such as Outside and Smithsonian. (Eiger Dreams is published by Lyons & Burford)

Book critic John Leonard reviews Janet Malcolm's controversial book, "The Journalist and the Murderer." The book questions the ethics involved in the trust journalists create in their subjects, focusing on the case of writer Joe McGinnis, whose book "Fatal Vision," was a portrait of murder suspect Jeffrey MacDonald.

Writer Paul Auster. Auster began his writing life first as a poet and translator. In a review of his fifth novel, "Moon Palace," Jane Smiley said, "Auster's style is continually surprising and arresting...the characters are drawn with precision and wit...with great generosity and love." Auster's other books include City of Glass, Ghosts, and a memoir, The Invention of Solitude. (Interview by Marty Moss-Coane)