In The Secret History of the War on Cancer, environmental-health expert Devra Davis warns that we're ignoring dozens of cancer-causing chemicals, like asbestos, benzene, vinyl chloride, and dioxin.
She writes that, like the tobacco companies, the chemical industry has managed to obfuscate the carcinogenic dangers of chemical and other toxic waste.
Davis directs the Center for Environmental Oncology at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute and teaches epidemiology in the university's public-health graduate program.
Snacking on water beetles in Laos, dining on dog in Korea: Tom Parker Bowles, food writer for Britain's The Mail on Sunday, Night and Day, and Tatler (and son of Prince Charles' wife, Camilla Parker Bowles), has written what he's described as "a travel book about weird food."
It's called The Year of Eating Dangerously: A Global Adventure in Search of Culinary Extremes.
September 11, AIDS, the Holocaust — comic and actress Sarah Silverman has repeatedly proved that practically nothing need be off limits in a joke. Take the title of her Off-Broadway show, which later became a film: Jesus Is Magic. Or the music video, available on her Comedy Central show's blog, of "The Doodie Song."
Silverman has appeared in films including School of Rock and There's Something About Mary and she was a member of the Saturday Night Live ensemble in the early '90s.
Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh is a regular contributor to The New Yorker magazine. He has written in depth about the Bush administration. His article in this weekâs edition (âShifting Targetsâ) is about the administrationâs shift in position on Iran, redefining the war in Iraq as a strategic battle between the U.S. and Iran. Hersh exposed the Abu Ghraib prison scandal in 2004, in a series of articles published in the magazine early in 2005. He has been the recipient of the Pulitzer Prize, five George Polk Awards, two National Magazine Awards, and a dozen other prizes.
Co-executive producers Barry Sonnenfeld and Bryan Fuller of the new comedy/drama âPushing Daisesâ on ABC. The show combines romance, fantasy and mystery and is about a guy who can bring the dead back to life with a mere touch. Fuller created the series and also created the TV series âDead Like Meâ and was a writer and executive producer on âHeroes.â Sonnenfeld directed the âMen in Blackâ films and the âAddams Familyâ films. He also was executive producer of the TV show âThe Tick.â (THIS INTERVIEW WAS CONDUCTED BY DAVID BIANCULLI).
Fresh Air's TV critic reviews the fall season. New shows include the sitcom Aliens in America, premiering Oct. 1 on the CW Network, and ABC's comedy drama Pushing Daisies, making its debut Wednesday, Oct. 3.
Writer and director Wes Anderson (The Royal Tenenbaums) and actor Jason Schwartzman (I Heart Huckabees) discuss their latest film, The Darjeeling Limited. The adventure comedy, also starring Owen Wilson and Adrien Brody, follows three estranged brothers on a spiritual quest to India.
Fresh Air's rock critic reviews Revival, the new solo album from the onetime Creedence Clearwater Revival frontman.
Fogerty is a noted songwriter, responsible for the standard "Proud Mary" and nine other Top 10 singles for CCR between 1969 and 1971 alone. The band split in 1972.
Revival, due out Oct. 2, carries 12 new originals from the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Famer.
A foreign correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, Yaroslav Trofimov traces the beginning of the global jihad to Nov. 20, 1979.
It was the first morning of the new Muslim century, and hundreds of fundamentalist gunmen seized Islam's holiest shrine — the Grand Mosque in Mecca. The event and its ringleaders have since inspired militants, including al-Qaida.
Trofimov is also the author of Faith at War: A Journey on the Frontlines of Islam, from Baghdad to Timbuktu.
A new family memoir from the daughter of famed literary critic Anatole Broyard bears the subtitle My Father's Hidden Life — A Story of Race and Family Secrets. Bliss Broyard, raised as white in Connecticut, was 24 when she learned that her father had concealed his black heritage.
Fresh Air's critic-at-large ponders the 40th-anniversary edition DVD of the The Graduate.
Released in 1967, The Graduate starred Dustin Hoffman and Anne Bancroft and won an Oscar for director Mike Nichols. It was also nominated for six other Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actor and Best Actress.
Fresh Air's jazz critic reviews Quartet, a live performance from the McCoy Tyner Quartet, featuring pianist McCoy Tyner, saxophonist Joe Lovano, bassist Christian McBride and drummer Jeff "Tain Watts.
The album, recorded on New Year's Eve 2006, leads off a new series of recordings from McCoy Tyner, and is the first recording on the new McCoy Tyner Music label.
Haitian-born writer Edwidge Danticat's memoir Brother, I'm Dying details the complicated emotions surrounding the deaths of her father and uncle — and the birth of her daughter — all in the same year.
Danticat's uncle raised her in Haiti until age 12, when she moved to New York to live with her immigrant parents.
Danticat is the author of a number of novels, including Breath, Eyes, Memory, as well as the short-story collection Krik? Krak!.
Actor Ray Wise (Good Night, and Good Luck) portrays the devil in Reaper, a new series from Clerks writer-director Kevin Smith.
The show centers on a 21-year-old slacker, Sam, who discovers that his parents sold his soul to the devil when he was born. Sam must now serve as the devil's bounty hunter, helping return evildoers to hell.
Fresh Air's rock critic reviews The Con, the fifth album from Canadian duo Tegan and Sara.
The Calgary natives — they're twins, named Tegan and Sara Quin — have seen their music used to score a number of American TV shows, including Grey's Anatomy, The L Word and Medium.
Philip Roth's newest novel, Exit Ghost, is his ninth and final Nathan Zuckerman book.
The series began in 1979 with The Ghost Writer; a compendium, Zuckerman Bound, is now available.
Roth won a Pulitzer Prize in 1997 for American Pastoral; his 28 novels have won him numerous other awards, including the American Academy of Arts and Letters' Gold Medal for Fiction.
