Lahiri's new novel is The Namesake. Lahiri won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for Interpreter of Maladies, her collection of short stories. She won a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2002. The Namesake is about being an Indian immigrant in America, when the Ganguli family leaves Calcutta and settles in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Music critic Milo Miles looks at the career of reggae greats Toots Hibbert and his band, the Maytals. The group's recent re-issues are Time Tough, Funky Kingston (Island Records) and Monkey Man (Trojan Records).
Enter MeFranken's new book is Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right. Franken recently made headlines when the Fox News Channel tried to sue him over the phrase "fair and balanced," which Fox claimed as its own. Fox lost, and Franken got lots of publicity for the book, which is now a bestseller. Al Franken is an alumnus of Saturday Night Live, where his most memorable character was the simpering self-help sap Stuart Smalley.
Pete Best was the drummer for The Beatles in their early days in Liverpool and Hamburg. His mother, Mona Best, was the owner of The Casbah Coffee Club in Liverpool. The various early incarnations of The Beatles played The Casbah more than 90 times. Best has just co-written a large-format book, The Beatles: The True Beginnings. Today he writes, records and tours with his own group, The Pete Best Band.
Lloyd Schwartz talks about composer Jerome Moross, whose music included the popular theme music of "Wagon Train" and the song "Lazy Afternoon." He died in 1983. This month, he would have turned 100.
Ken Kaiser's new book, co-written with David Fisher, is called Planet of the Umps: A Baseball Life from Behind the Plate. A 1986 Sporting News poll called Kaiser the most colorful umpire in the American League. He left the major leagues in 2001, after calling balls, strikes and outs for more than 3,000 games.
Helen Stickler's new documentary, Stoked: The Rise and Fall of Gator, tells the story of former skateboarding star Mark "Gator" Rogowski. Rogowski is now serving 31 years in prison for the rape and murder of a former girlfriend. Ken Park, a former skateboarder and friend of Rogowski, is interviewed in the film. Park is now the president and CEO of John Galt Media. Stickler is an Emmy-nominated writer, producer and director of documentary films and commercials.
Writer Eric Dezenhall, a damage control expert, is president of the PR firm Nicholas-Dezenhall Communications Management Group based in Washington, D.C. He has in the past described his business as a response to "the culture of the attack." He appears regularly on Hardball and The O'Reilly Factor. Dezenhall worked for the Reagan administration.
Writer Daniel Glick's new book is Monkey Dancing: A Father, Two Kids, and a Journey to the Ends of The Earth. After Glick's wife left him for another woman, and his older brother died, he took his two children, ages 9 and 13, on a trip around the world, seeking out endangered places. Glick was a Newsweek correspondent for 12 years, and has written for many other publications including Rolling Stone and The New York Times.
Dr. Sheri Fink's new book is War Hospital: A True Story of Surgery and Survival. It's about a group of doctors who treated patients in Srebrenica, Bosnia, under the most extreme conditions. They treated thousands of patients, often without electricity, water or proper medicine. Fink, a physician and writer based in New York, works with the humanitarian organization International Medical Corps. She just returned from Iraq and has also worked in the Balkans, southern Africa and Central Asia.
Doug Spreen is one of the official trainers for the ATP (Association of Tennis Professionals) and has worked with the world's top tennis players, including Pete Sampras, Andre Agassi and Andy Roddick. He is responsible for the health of the players, deals with their injuries before and after competition, and tends to them while they are competing. Spreen often has to run onto the court and check on athletes who are injured during play.
