Books & Literature

Crime writer Elmore Leonard. His new novel is titled Touch and follows two successful novels, Glitz and Bandits.

Jazz Critic Kevin Whitehead will review a reissue of the 1959 album, "Ellington Jazz Party." His review includes a discussion of the controversial biography of Duke Ellington by James Lincoln Collier, controversial because Collier alleges that true credit for many of Ellington's most famous tunes belongs to his band members.

Indian writer Ved Mehta. He's written several books of autobiography, most all of which have been serialized in "The New Yorker" magazine. His autobiographies are poignant accounts of his blindness, his education in England, and the role that language came to play in his life.

Writer Michael Ignatieff. His new book, Russian Album, recalls, through diaries, photographs and a few mementoes, his forebearers, aristocrats at the time of the Russian Revolution. While most of the upper class was killed in the Revolution, Ignatieff's family fled to Canada.

Stewart Brand, founder of The Whole Earth Catalog and The Whole Earth Software Review. He's written a book on the Media Lab, MIT's state-of-the-art computer lab.

Critic-at-Large Laurie Stone will review a new collection of short stories by Jincey Willet titled Jenny and the Jaws of Life.

Actress Shirley MacLaine. She'll discuss her varied career in entertainment and her recent spiritual explorations.

Robert Brustein, theater critic for The New Republic since 1959. Brustein founded the Yale Repertory Theater and the American Repertory Theater at Harvard. His new book of essays is titled Who Needs Theatre: Dramatic Opinions.

Book Critic John Leonard will review The Making of The African Queen, or How I went to Africa with Bogart, Bacall and Huston and almost lost my mind, by actress Katherine Hepburn.

Author Toni Morrison, acclaimed for her honest depiction of black life in her books, Song of Solomon, Sula, and Tar Baby. Her first novel in seven years has just been published. It's titled Beloved.

Adam Hochschild, founder of the leftist magazine "Mother Jones." He's written a memoir about his ambivalent relationship with his father, an industrialist who operated a string of gold and diamond mines in South Africa.

Writer Jane Smiley. Her newest work, a combination of novella and short story, probes the disappointments and loss of middle age. It is titled The Age of Grief.

Film producer Ismail Merchant, who, with film director James Ivory, is responsible for films like "The Bostonians," and "Room with a View." His upcoming film, "Maurice," is, like "Room with a View," an adaptation of an E.M. Forster novel.

Author and traveller Bruce Chatwin. His new book, Songlines, is a semi-fictional account of the myths that structure the lives of Australia's aborigines. Chatwin's early works include the acclaimed travel book In Patagonia.

Book Critic John Leonard will review What Ever Happened to Gloomy Gus of the Chicago Bears, the new novel by Robert Coover.

Syndicated cartoonist Matt Groening. His strip, titled "Life in Hell," appears in alternative papers around the country. His animated characters (rabbits) also appear on TV's "The Tracey Ullman Show."

Thomas "Hollywood" Henderson, a star player for the Dallas Cowboys throughout the 70s. He fell victim to a cocaine addiction and was one of the first professional athletes to admit to his problem.

Francine Du Plessix Gray, journalist and novelist. She has written extensively about women and fashion. Her new book is a collection of essays that cover religion, the idea of home and the current moral climate.

Michael Denneny a senior editor at St. Martin's Press. His latest project is a small press called Stonewall Inn Editions, specializing in gay literature.

Book Critic John Leonard will review Beloved, the new novel by Toni Morrison, the author of Tar Baby and Song of Solomon, winner of the 1978 Book Critics Circle Award for fiction.