Showing results by author "Terry Gross" in All Categories

Hear British scientist Richard Dawkins and geneticist Francis Collins on this edition of Fresh Air. Richard Dawkins is a professor of the public understanding of science at Oxford University. The New York Times has hailed him as a writer who "understands the issues so clearly that he forces his reader to understand them too". In his latest book, he writes about what he sees as the irrationality of a belief in God and sets down his arguments for atheism.

Writer Deirdre Bair on this edition of Fresh Air. Her new book is Jung: A Biography. Bair chronicles the life and work of the influential Swiss psychologist Carl Jung. Bair won the National Book Award for her biography of Samuel Beckett, and she's also written books about the lives of Anais Nin and Simone de Beauvoir.

Musician, producer, arranger, composer Quincy Jones on this 70th birthday rebroadcast edition of Fresh Air. In his fifty year career he's worked with just about anyone who is anybody in the music business. As a teenager he played backup for Billie Holiday, along with his 16 year old friend, Ray Charles. At 18 he began playing the trumpet in Lionel Hampton's band beside Clifford Brown. He went on to work with Count Basie, Frank Sinatra, Dinah Washington, Sarah Vaughn, Lesley Gore and many others.

On this edition of Fresh Air, host Terry Gross speaks with screen writer and director Chris Nolan. Nolan's latest film is Memento, about a man set on avenging his wife's murder. Plus, reviews of a new CD set from Buffalo Springfield and of Woody Allen's latest.

Writer Marijane Meaker on this edition of Fresh Air. Her new book is about her two-year affair with the great writer Patricia Highsmith. The two met in the 1950s at a Greenwich Village lesbian bar. Both were writing lesbian pulp novels under pseudonyms. Meaker wrote Spring Fire (1952) under the pen name Vin Packer. It sold 1.5 million copies. She also wrote under the name Ann Aldrich.

Journalist Robert Kaplan and Peter W. Galbraith, former U.S. amassador to Croatia, on this edition of Fresh Air. Robert Kaplan is a correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly. His story in the April edition of magazine is "A Tale of Two Colonies." Kaplan traveled to Yemen and Eritrea to investigate how the war on terrorism is forcing the U.S. to be involved with each. Yemen is believed to have the largest Al-Qaeda presence outside of the Afghanistan-Pakistan region.

Actor Matt Damon and writer John Ridley on this edition of Fresh Air. Matt Damon's film The Bourne Identity is being released on DVD next week. The Bourne Identity is a thriller about a man with amnesia flushed out of the Mediterranean Sea, riddled with bullet holes. Damon has been in many hit films, including The Talented Mr. Ripley, Saving Private Ryan and Good Will Hunting, which he co-wrote with close friend Ben Affleck.

Hear journalist David Rieff and New York Times food columnist Mark Bittman on this edition of Fresh Air. David Rieff has written a new memoir about the death of his mother, Susan Sontag, who died in 2004 after her third bout with cancer. His memoir is Swimming in a Sea of Death: A Son's Memoir.

Journalist Jeffrey Rosen and Jeffrey Toobin on this edition of Fresh Air. Jeffrey Rosen's article in this coming Sunday's New York Times Magazine is about the CIA's effort to partner with Silicon Valley to develop new anti-terrorist technologies. The CIA has founded a venture-capital firm that funds the development of cutting edge technologies that may be useful for national security, in particular new techniques for finding terrorists.

Poet and memoirist Mary Karr on this edition of Fresh Air. In a follow-up to Liar's Club, what critics call "a hard scrabble childhood," Karr returns to East Texas to detail her adolescence in Cherry. The author relates anecdotes of rebellion, self-doubt, and sexual coming of age. The recipient of several literary awards such as the Pushcart Prize and the Bunting Award, she has published two volumes of poetry. She is the Peck Professor of English Literature at Syracuse University.

Writer Sarah Waters and actor John Malkovich on this edition of Fresh Air. Sarah Waters is the author of three novels which she calls "lesbo Victorian romps." The lesbian themed books are: Tipping the Velvet, Affinity, and Fingersmith. Fingersmith was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Tipping the Velvet was made into a BBC miniseries and it will be shown on the cable channel BBC America later this month.

Actress Jodie Foster and radio personality Garrison Keillor on this edition of Fresh Air. Jodie Foster's film Panic Room is now on video and DVD. Recently she produced and acted in the film The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys. Foster has won two Oscars for performances in The Silence of the Lambs and The Accused. She was also nominated for her work in Taxi Driver and Nell. She's also served as producer or director on numerous films.

Satirist and host of the public radio program Le Show, Harry Shearer, on how he's been dealing with the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on his show. Will Ferrell is a regular cast member of Saturday Night Live. Last weekend the show began the new season in a somber tone, opening the show with Mayor Guilliani surrounded by a group of New York fire fighters, police and EMT workers. Ferrell has portrayed President George Bush on the show as well as Janet Reno, Alex Trebek and Robert Goulet; his other send-ups include musical middle school teacher Marty Culp, and Spartan...

An expert in climate change research, Paul Mayewski and science fiction writer Sheri S. Tepper on this edition of Fresh Air.

Hear artist Chuck Close, actor Richard Gere, rock historian Ed Ward, and film critic David Edelstein on this edition of Fresh Air. Chuck Close has been called "the most methodical artist that has ever lived in America" and the "reigning portraitist of the Information Age". He creates jumbo-size faces on canvas (8 or 9 feet high), copying them from photographs. They are painted in a dotted faux-pointillist style.

Photographer Joel Meyerowitz on this edition of Fresh Air. He took three portraits of the World Trade Center Towers in 1981.

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."

Hear Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, political journalist William Kristol, policy analyst Carl Conetta, Baghdad-born activist Yanar Mohammed, and writer Lawrence Wright on this edition of Fresh Air.

Audible presents a special collection of recent Fresh Air interviews with actors Matt Damon, Jodie Foster, Nicolas Cage, and Cherry Jones, as well as Navajo code talker Rev. Roy Hawthorne, screenwriter John Ridley, directors Paul and Chris Weitz, and cartoonist Stan Lee.

Historian Avi Shlaim and remembering Robert Ludlum on this edition of Fresh Air. Avi Shlaim is the author of the new book, The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World. Shlaim's book is a revisionist interpretation of Isreal's policy toward the Arab world, based on newly released documents, and on interviews with policymakers and participants in events. Writer Robert Ludlum died yesterday of a heart attack, at age 73. His string of best sellers, such as The Bourne Identity, The Osterman Weekend, and The Icarus Agenda, established him as one of literature's most...