History

In the early 1990s, NPR journalist Scott Simon reported from war-torn Sarajevo. Those experiences formed the basis for his debut novel, Pretty Birds, the story of a 16-year-old girl who adapts to her violent times.

Film critic David Edelstein reviews the new documentary Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room.

Mirta Ojito is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist for The New York Times. Ojito and her family were part of the Mariel boatlift out of Cuba. Her new memoir is Finding Mañana: A Memoir of a Cuban Exodus. Ojito has interviewed Fidel Castro himself in researching the boatlift.

Writer David Reynolds is the author of the new biography John Brown: Abolitionist: The Man who Killed Slavery, Sparked the Civil War, and Seeded Civil Rights. Reynold's book is considered to be a sympathetic look at the man who he says framed the issue of slavery in stark, uncompromising terms.

Laurence Rees' Auschwitz: A New History provides details about the inner workings of the camp: techniques of mass murder, the politics, the gossip mill between guards and prisoners, and the camp brothel.

Critic-at-large John Powers has some thoughts on wine, and globalization after watching the documentary Mondovino by Jonathan Nossiter.

Director Ruth Leitman and Wrestler Lillian "The fabulous Moolah" Ellison discuss the new documentary Lipstick and Dynamite. The film takes a look at the sport of lady wrestling, a phenomenon that started in the 1930s. The fabulous Moolah is now in her '80s and still wrestling.

Former senator and Republican leader Bob Dole has written a new memoir about his experience in World War II. Late in the war in Italy, Dole was injured; he nearly died, and spent years in recovery. He was left with a paralyzed right arm. His new book is 'One Soldier's Story.'

Ian McEwan is the author of the best-selling novel Atonement. His latest novel, Saturday, takes place during one single day of a neurosurgeon's life. It is set in a post-9/11 world.

Classical music critic Lloyd Schwartz reviews the latest project by Russian conductor Valery Gergiev — recordings of Shostakovich's Fourth, Fifth, Seventh and Ninth Symphonies.

Book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews A Changed Man, the new novel by Francine Prose.

In April, New York Times reporter Dexter Filkins will receive the George Polk Award for War Reporting for "his riveting, first-hand account of an eight-day attack on Iraqi insurgents in Fallujah." We talk with him about the rebuilding country and its recent elections.

Former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer gave daily briefings to the press from 2001 to 2003. He acted as the Bush administration's primary spokesperson during both 9/11 and the beginning of the Iraq War.

Edward Berkowitz is a professor of history and public administration and at George Washington University, where he also directs the Program in History and Public Policy. He is an expert on the history of Social Security.

Actor Bruno Ganz and director Oliver Hirschbiegel's new film is Downfall, about the last days of Hitler. Ganz stars as Adolf Hitler. He's made over 80 films mostly in German, and was in the recent remake of The Manchurian Candidate. Downfall is Hirschbiegel's third film, and his most popular to date.

Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid is a correspondent for the Far Eastern Economic Review and The Daily Telegraph, reporting on Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia . He is also author of Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia and the bestseller, Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil, and Fundamentalism in Central Asia.

Robert Redford is an actor, a director -- and the founder of the Sundance Institute. He discusses the Sundance Film Festival, which is under way this week.

Kenneth Roth is the executive director of Human Rights Watch. He says the Justice Department's decision not to have the Geneva Conventions apply to Taliban and al Qaeda detainees has opened the door to the abuse of prisoners elsewhere.

John Yoo is a former deputy assistant attorney general in the office of legal counsel of the Dept. of Justice. He wrote some of the memos in the new book The Torture Papers, including some pertaining to the Geneva Conventions and the definition of torture. He signed off on the memo denying prisoner-of-war status under the Geneva Conventions to al Qaeda and Taliban fighters in Afghanistan. Yoo is currently a professor of law at the University of California at Berkeley.

A new book compiles U.S. memos and reports on the interrogation and treatment of detainees in Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison. The Torture Papers: The Road to Abu Ghraib was edited by Karen J. Greenberg and Joshua L. Dratel.