Search results for

Cartooonist ART SPIEGELMAN, author of "Maus," for which he won a Pulitzer Prize, and "Maus II." The two book-length comics are accounts of SPIEGELMAN's parents' experiences in the Holocaust. He is also co-founder and editor of "Raw," a magazine of avant-garde comics. He has now illustrated "The Wild Party: The Lost Classic by Joseph Moncure March" (Pantheon

2: Travel author and novelist, PAUL THEROUX. His extensive travels have taken him through Africa, Asia and Central America. In his earlier writings, a central theme of his work was the ironic examination of the clashing and mingling of Western and Third World cultures. Theroux's first book was "Waldo." He has also written "Riding the Iron Rooster," which gives an account of his travels by train through China. His new book, "My Other Life" (Houghton Bufflin) is a work of fiction, based on his experiences and encounters as a world traveler. His interview was recorded at the Free Library in Philadelphia.

Retired U.S. Navy flight surgeon and NASA astronaut Captain Jerry Linenger talks about the awe and peril of space travel. He spent five months on the Russian Space station Mir and wrote about the account in his book, Off the Planet: Surviving Five Perilous Months Aboard the Space Station Mir." He described the Mir as "six school buses all hooked together." During his time there, he says, he and fellow crew members had numerous brushes with death, lacked adequate supplies and battled constant system failures. Linenger's new book is Letters from Mir: An Astronaut's Letters to His Son.

In the past ten years, one third of the executions in the United States have been carried out in the state of Texas. Since 1924, executions in Texas have taken place in the Walls Unit in Huntsville. The Warden of that prison, Jim Willett, narrates a documentary titled Witness to an Execution. It includes first hand accounts from the men and women who participate in and witness executions as part of their jobs. Guards, chaplains and reporters talk about their work -- detailing what occurs in the minutes before, during and after the execution. The prison employees say they do the job because the vast majority of citizens want it done. Most are affected by the work. Some reach the breaking point and find they can no longer work in the system.

The New York Times and its Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Judith Miller have presented twin accounts of Miller's role in the Valerie Plame CIA leak case. The articles provide details of Miller's testimony -- and open up new questions about the paper's oversight.

Comedian and actor Will Ferrell talks about his new film Stranger Than Fiction. Ferrell plays an accountant who finds that his life has a voiceover that only he can hear. It turns out he's the subject of a novel, and that the writer plans to kill him. Ferrell became famous as a cast member on Saturday Night Live from 1995 to 2002, and has gone on to star in movies such as Old School, Elf and Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby.

Gen. Romeo Dallaire was commander of the U.N. peacekeeping forces in Rwanda 10 years ago during one of the worst massacres in modern history. Some 800,000 Rwandans were killed in 100 days. Most of them were Tutsi and moderate Hutu civilians. During that time Dallaire and his troops were denied authority to intervene. The experience changed him, tormented him, and filled him with guilt. He suffered from post traumatic stress syndrome, was suicidal and depressed. He's written a new account, Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda.

Slate magazine editor Jacob Weisberg has a few things to say about the presidency of George W. Bush. He's assembled his thoughts in a book called The Bush Tragedy, which Time magazine political columnist Joe Klein calls a "scorching, powerful and entirely plausible account" of an administration whose "epic collapse" Klein has lately been writing about.

Journalist Jack Newfield's close work with Robert F. Kennedy during the last year of his life informs Newfield's 1969 book, RFK: A Memoir, which offers a first-hand account of the assassinated politician and attempts to separate the man from myth.

Writer BEN HAMPER. His funny first-person account of working in GM's auto factory is "Rivethead: Tales from the Assembly Line" (Warner Books). HAMPER is a third generation auto worker in Flint, Michigan. He first started writing when he submitted articles to the alternative newspaper, "The Flint Voice." The editor then was Michael Moore, who made the documentary "Roger and Me." Hamper appeared in Moore's documentary and also in the short lived TV program "TV Nation." In 1995 he appeared in "Canandian Bacon," a film starring John Candy. Last year, he moved from the factory town of Flint to Sutton's Bay, MI. (Rebroadcast, originally aired 8/19/91.