Terry Gross

DJ Kool Herc is the father of the breakbeat, the deejay practice of isolating and repeating "breaks," the most danceable portions of songs; breakbeats make up the foundation of modern hip-hop. Herc has written the introduction to the new book Can't Stop, Won't Stop: A History of the Hip Hop Generation (St.Martins, 2005) by Jeff Chang.

Writer Samuel G. Freedman's new book is Who She Was: My Search for My Mother's Life. Freedman's mother died many years ago, when he was just 18, and as he approached his mother's age when she died, he decided to find out all about her life. The result is a narrative fueled by facts.

Donald Kroodsma is a renowned specialist in the interpretation of bird songs. His new book, The Singing Life of Birds, describes how birds communicate and why. But Kroodsma is also the subject of another book — about those who listen to birds.

In the past several months, singer Marianne Faithfull has released two CDs: a two-disc set of her hits, and Before the Poison, which includes tracks written by PJ Harvey.

A professor of English literature at the New School for Social Research, Sundiata is one of New York's notable spoken-word artists. His one-man show, about the year his kidney failed, runs at the Apollo Theater in New York City through April 10, 2005. This interview originally aired Nov. 20, 2002.

Robinson's first novel, Housekeeping, won a PEN/Hemingway Award. Now, 23 years later, her second novel, Gilead, has won the National Book Critics Circle Award. The book is written as a letter from a 76-year-old Congregationalist preacher to his 7-year-old son. This interview originally aired Feb. 8, 2005.

Her new movie, which she wrote and directed, is The Ballad of Jack and Rose, starring Miller's husband, Daniel Day-Lewis, along with Camilla Belle and Catherine Keener. It's about an aging hippie father and his daughter who are living on an abandoned commune but come face-to-face with the contemporary world. Miller is the daughter of the legendary playwright Arthur Miller.

Several years ago, Haggis optioned the F.X. Toole book that was to become the Academy Award winning film Million Dollar Baby, for which he wrote the screenplay and produced. His film Crash, about racial tension in Los Angeles, is set for release in 2005.

Writer James Atlas' new book is a collection of essays called My Life in the Middle Ages: A Survivor's Tale. James Atlas is the founding editor of the Lipper/Viking Penguin Lives Series. He writes for The New Yorker. He was also an editor at The New York Times Magazine. His work has appeared in many publications, including The New York Review of Books, The London Review of Books, and Vanity Fair. He is the author of Delmore Schwartz: The Life of an American Poet, which was nominated for the National Book Award.

His new book is No God but God: The Origins, Evolution and Future of Islam. The book is a call to reform, and a proposal to end the religious battle between East and West. Aslan was born in Iran and lives in the United States. He was a visiting assistant professor of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Iowa, where he got an MFA in fiction at the Writer's Workshop. Aslan has written for The Nation, Slate and The New York Times.