Showing results by author "Terry Gross" in All Categories

Listen to singer-songwriter Neil Sedaka and book critic Maureen Corrigan on this edition of Fresh Air. This year marks Neil Sedaka's 50th in the music business. He was part of the original creators of the "Brill Building sound" of the late 50s and early 60s. His early songs "Stupid Cupid" and "Where the Boys Are" were hits by Connie Francis.

Listen to filmmakers John Alpert and Matthew O'Neill, and film critic David Edelstein on this edition of Fresh Air. John Alpert's and Matthew O'Neill's new documentary, Baghdad ER, is a recipient of this year's coveted Peabody award and is out on DVD. The film looks inside the 86th combat support hospital, the Army's premier medical facility in Iraq.

Listen to journalist Kenneth R. Weiss, Irish actor Gabriel Byrne, and rock critic Ken Tucker on this edition of Fresh Air. Kenneth Weiss writes for the L.A. Times and has covered the California coast and the oceans for the past five years. He's written (with co-author Usha Lee McFarling) a new five-part series, Altered Oceans, on the long-term health of the seas. The series received the George Polk Award for journalism.

Peter Landesman, contributing writer to The New York Times Magazine, on this edition of Fresh Air. Landesman investigated the sex slave industry for this week's cover story, "The Girls Next Door."

Author Charles Lewis, and climber and author Joe Simpson on this edition of Fresh Air. Charles Lewis and a team of researchers at the Center for Public Integrity have investigated the financing of all of this year's presidential contenders in the new book The Buying of the President 2004: Who's Really Bankrolling Bush and His Democratic Challengers - and What They Expect in Return. Joe Simpson wrote the book Touching the Void about his ill-fated climb of Siula Grande mountain in Peru.

Journalist Peter Maass on this edition of Fresh Air. In this week's New York Times Magazine cover story, Maass writes about Major John Nagl, a professor at West Point and a counterinsurgency expert who's putting his theories about counterinsurgency into practice for the first time. He's in Iraq with a tank battalion in the Sunni Triangle.

Former US Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill and Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Ron Suskind on this edition of Fresh Air. The two have collaborated on the new book, The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O'Neill. The book chronicles his nearly two years with the Bush administration.

Because Audible was not granted digital audio rights to today's issue of Fresh Air, we have selected a great interview with former major league umpire Ken Kaiser, filmmaker Helen Stickler, and former skateboarder Kenneth Park.

Political commentator and former Republican Strategist Kevin Phillips and Afghani filmmaker Siddiq Barmack on this edition of Fresh Air. Phillips is a regular contributor to the Los Angeles Times and National Public Radio. And he's the author of nine books, including The Politics of Rich and Poor. In his new book, American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune, and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush, he takes a good look at the Bush family legacy.

Tammy Faye Messner and record executive Simon Cowell on this edition of Fresh Air. Tammy Faye Messner, along with her ex-husband Jim Bakker, built the Praise the Lord televangelist network. Record executive Simon Cowell is one of the judges on the talent show, American Idol, a spin-off of the show he co-created in Britian, Pop Idol.

Fresh Air celebrates the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., by talking with Shirley Ann Barnhard, Clayborne Carson, and James Farmer. Shirley Ann Barnhard is a staff member and tour guide at the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, GA, where Martin Luther King, Jr., was once co-pastor with his father. Clayborne Carson is founding director of the King Papers Project. James Farmer is the co-founder of CORE, the Congress On Racial Equality.

Staff writer and film critic for The New Yorker David Denby, and artist, photographer, and writer Rosemond Purcell on this edition of Fresh Air. Denby's new book, American Sucker, is a memoir about his brief obsession with the stock market during the height of irrational exuberance in 2000-2001. Rosemond Purcell has been called the "doyenne of decay" by sleight-of-hand artist Ricky Jay.

Author Paul Auster on this edition of Fresh Air. His new book is Oracle Night. Auster is the author of 11 novels, three screenplays, five books of poetry, and seven works of nonfiction. His recent works include the best-selling novels The Book of Illusions and Timbuktu, and he also edited the NPR National Story Project anthology, I Thought My Father Was God.

Dr. Jerome Groopman and Saudi Arabian-born journalist Faiza Saleh Ambah on this edition of Fresh Air. Dr. Groopman is a Harvard Medical School Chair and is Chief of Experimental Medicine at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston.

Political activist William Greene, Wes Boyd, and Eli Pariser of the liberal group Moveon.org on this edition of Fresh Air. Greene is a founder of the conservative group rightmarch.com. Wes Boyd and Eli Pariser are members of the liberal group Moveon.org.

South African actor and playwright John Kani on this edition of Fresh Air. Kani is best known for his apartheid-era politically-charged collaborations with playwright Athol Fugard. His new play, and his first as a solo playwright, is Nothing But the Truth.

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.

Singer Emmylou Harris and horror writer Peter Straub on this archive edition of Fresh Air.

Cancer researcher John Mendelsohn, M.D.. He is the president of the MD Anderson Cancer Center at the University of Texas.

South African journalists Howard Barrell and Mondli Makhanya and remembering mouth organist Larry Adler on this edition of Fresh Air.