Showing results by narrator "Terry Gross" in All Categories

Writer David Sedaris and actor Alan Cumming, on this edition of Fresh Air. Sedaris is best known for his contributing work with public radio's This American Life. He's written three books of essays, Barrel Fever, Naked, and his newest Me Talk Pretty One Day which was just released in paperback. Scottish actor Alan Cumming co-wrote, co-directed, and is co-starring in the new film The Anniversary Party, along with Jennifer Jason Leigh.

Hear author Richard Powers and film critic David Edelstein on this edition of Fresh Air. Richard Powers talks about his novel The Echo Maker. In the book, a 27-year-old man is in a car accident and emerges from a coma with a rare neurological disorder. He can recall most everything about his life, but he believes his family members and closest friends are imposters. The Echo Maker won the National Book Award for fiction in 2006 and has just been released in paperback.

Hear novelist Junot Diaz, critic-at-large John Powers, and world-music critic Milo Miles on this edition of Fresh Air. Junot Diaz's new book is The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. The highly acclaimed novel tells both a family and a political story set in the Dominican Republic and the United States. The narrative trips along in a slangy style that mixes Spanish and English.

Comedian and political satirist Al Franken and actor Benicio Del Toro on this edition of Fresh Air. In December, Franken was part of a USO tour performing for troops in Iraq, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, and Kuwait. The tour lasted eight days, and he returned Christmas Day. He'll talk about the tour and do some of his routine from it. Franken's books include Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right and Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot.

Musician Ravi Shankar, actors Vince Vaughn and Gene Hackman on this edition of Fresh Air. Today, we learned that former Beatle George Harrison has died.

Hear Romanian film writer-director Cristian Mungiu on this edition of Fresh Air. Mungiu's film 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days is about a young woman who gets an illegal abortion during the final days of the communist Ceausescu regime. The film won the Palme d'Or prize at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival, the top prize.

Poet, critic, and novelist Carol Muske-Dukes and remembering social critic and novelist Mordecai Richler on this edition of Fresh Air. Muske-Dukes' new novel Life After Death is the story of a woman who says one day to her husband in anger "Why don't you just die?" The next day he drops dead. The book follows her journey into grief, self-reproach, and self-discovery. Muske-dukes is the Director of the PhD Program in Creative Writing and Literature at the University of Southern California. She's published three previous novels, and six collections of poetry, the most recent is...

Linguist John McWhorter and photographer Joel Meyerowitz on this editin of Fresh Air.

Journalist Bill Keller and actresses Lupe Ontiveros and Bonnie Hunt on this edition of Fresh Air. Bill Keller is a columnist for The New York Times and senior writer for the magazine section. He just returned from a trip to Russia. He'll discuss Russia's position on Iraq. Actress Lupe Ontiveros stars in the new film Real Women Have Curves as a mother at odds with her two teenage daughters. She recently starred in the independent film Chuck and Buck.

Hear neurologist Oliver Sacks and rock critic Ken Tucker on this edition of Fresh Air. Oliver Sacks' new book is Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain. It's a series of case histories that examine the relationship of music and the mind. Sacks has written eleven books; the most famous are Awakenings, which was made into a film starring Robert DeNiro and Robin Williams, and The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat.

Editor and writer Walter Kirn and casting director and actress Joanna Merlin on this edition of Fresh Air. Kirn's new novel Up in the Air is about 35-year-old Ryan Bingham, a well-traveled business man who has a goal of accumulating one million miles in his frequent flyer account. Kirn is the literary editor for GQ and a contributing editor to Time and Vanity Fair. His fiction and nonfiction work has appeared in The New Yorker and the New York Times Magazine.

Journalist George Packer and television producer John Sacret Young on this edition of Fresh Air. George Packer grew up in a family with a very strong liberal tradition; his grandfather was a populist congressman from Alabama in the early part of the century; his father was a Jewish Kennedy-era liberal who was a professor at Stanford.

Hear journalist Charlie Savage and jazz critic Kevin Whitehead on this edition of Fresh Air. The Boston Globe's Charlie Savage received the 2007 Pulitzer Prize award for National Reporting for his series of articles in the Globe about revelations that President Bush often used "signing statements" to assert his controversial right to bypass provisions of new laws. Savage has written a new book that describes how the Bush-Cheney administration has expanded executive power.

Authors David Frum and Richard Perle on this edition of Fresh Air. They have collaborated on the new book, An End to Evil: How to Win the War on Terror.

Fresh Air rebroadcasts interviews with film editor and sound designer Walter Murch and inventor Robert Moog. Murch re-edited Orson Well's 1958 film Touch of Evil. At the time of the film's initial release the studio remixed the film to Well's displeasure. He fired off a letter with suggested changes. With those notes as their guide, Murch and Rick Schmidlin reconstructed the film to Well's intentions.

Journalists Charlie Savage and Lawrence Wright, and linguist Geoff Nunberg are guests on this edition of Fresh Air. Charlie Savage of the Boston Globe has been awarded a 2007 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting for his "revelations that President Bush often used 'signing statements' to assert his controversial right to bypass provisions of new laws."

Pulitzer prize-winning journalist from the Boston Globe Charlie Savage; the late Reverend Jerry Falwell; the dean of the Regent University School of Law, Jeffrey Brauch; and book critic Maureen Corrigan, on this edition of Fresh Air. Charlie Savage has been writing about a Christian law school whose graduates have become influential in the Justice Department. The school is the Regent University School of Law in Virginia Beach, which was founded by televangelist Pat Robertson.

Hear journalist Laura Rozen, food and wine columnist Russ Parsons, and jazz critic Kevin Whitehead on this edition of Fresh Air. Laura Rozen reports on national security and foreign policy from Washington, D.C., as a senior correspondent for The American Prospect and a contributor to the Washington Monthly, the Boston Globe, The Economist, the Forward, USA Today, Wired, and other publications.

Mexican Filmmaker Alejandro Gonzales Inarritu and writer Paul Robeson, Jr., on this edition of Fresh Air. Inarritu's debut film, Amores Perros, has just been released in the US to critical acclaim. The film follows the lives of three groups of people whose human relationships parallel the relationships they have with their dogs. Released in Los Angeles theaters in April, the movie was nominated for an Oscar in the category of Best Foreign Language Film.

Journalist David Remnick and former two-time heavyweight champion of the world George Foreman on this edition of Fresh Air. David Remnick is the author of the book King of the World, about heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali. Remnick is editor of The New Yorker Magazine and is also the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Lenin's Tomb. In 1974, in what was called the "Rumble in the Jungle", Foreman took on Muhammad Ali in Zaire for the world heavyweight title.