Books & Literature

Book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews Them: A Memoir of Parents, by Francine du Plessix Gray.

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.

Book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews Never Let Me Go, the new novel by Kazu Ishiguro, the author of the bestseller The Remains of the Day.

From 1998 to 2000, William Queen went undercover for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and rode with the Mongols, a southern California motorcycle gang. His new book is Under and Alone.

Former senator and Republican leader Bob Dole has written a new memoir about his experience in World War II. Late in the war in Italy, Dole was injured; he nearly died, and spent years in recovery. He was left with a paralyzed right arm. His new book is 'One Soldier's Story.'

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.

Ian McEwan is the author of the best-selling novel Atonement. His latest novel, Saturday, takes place during one single day of a neurosurgeon's life. It is set in a post-9/11 world.

Author Saul Bellow died April 5 at the age of 89. His short stories and novels garnered him three National Book Awards, a Pulitzer Prize, a Presidential Award and a Nobel Prize. His books include The Adventures of Augie March, Henderson the Rain King, Herzog and Humbolt's Gift. (Originally aired Oct. 4, 1989.)

Lewis Black is a playwright, stand-up comic, actor, and a commentator on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. He's been described as having the mouth of a shock-jock and the heart of a liberal. His new book is entitled Nothing's Sacred.

Writer Frank Conroy died April 6, at 69. He had colon cancer. He was the longtime director of the prestigious Iowa Writers Workshop. His 1967 memoir, Stop-Time, became a classic. In 1993, he published his first and only novel, Body & Soul. His other books were a collection of short stories, Midair, and his last book, the nonfiction Time and Tide: A Walk Through Nantucket. Conroy also worked as a jazz pianist in Greenwich Village and Nantucket for many years. (Originally aired Sept. 29, 1993)

Poet Laureate Ted Kooser's American Life In Poetry is a free weekly column providing a brief poem and description as a way to bring verse to the masses. Monday, Kooser won a Pulitzer Prize.

Film critic David Edelstein reviews Sin City, starring Bruce Willis and directed by Robert Rodriguez and comic writer-artist Frank Miller.

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.

Book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews The Couple Next Door by Margaret Millar, edited by Tom Nolan. It is part of The Lost Classics Series.

Writer James Atlas' new book is a collection of essays called My Life in the Middle Ages: A Survivor's Tale. James Atlas is the founding editor of the Lipper/Viking Penguin Lives Series. He writes for The New Yorker. He was also an editor at The New York Times Magazine. His work has appeared in many publications, including The New York Review of Books, The London Review of Books, and Vanity Fair. He is the author of Delmore Schwartz: The Life of an American Poet, which was nominated for the National Book Award.

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.

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.

Maureen Corrigan says Anne Lamott's Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith continues her meditations on spirituality with a series of short essays. Corrigan says she's not preaching just to the choir, taking a "screwball approach to soul searching."