Gail Sheehy and the "Spirit of Survival."

Writer Gail Sheehy became famous for her bestselling book Passages, in which she described the changing phases of an adult life. Now she's focussed on one phase of a woman's life that no one wants to talk about -- menopause -- in her new book, "The Silent Passage." (Random House) (Interview by Marty Moss-Coane)

Susan Silverman, on her sister comic Sarah Silverman, growing up secular Jewish and becoming a rabbi, adopting two Ethiopian boys, and how she was affected by the death of a sibling when she was very young.

In The Child Catchers, Kathryn Joyce explores the outsized influence of evangelical Christian groups on the overseas adoption industry. The adoption movement has orchestrated a boom-and-bust market that can exploit poor families in countries where regulations are weak and "orphans" may not actually be orphans.