Biography & Memoir

Biographer Diane Wood Middlebrook. She's written a controversial new book about the troubled writer Anne Sexton. The controversy surrounds Middlebrook's source material: she had access to transcripts of Sexton's psychiatric sessions with the approval of Sexton's daughter and psychiatrist. Sexton killed herself in 1974. She began writing poetry in 1956 following a suicidal breakdown and after her therapist suggested she try writing poetry. ("Anne Sexton: A Biography," published by Houghton Mifflin).

Writer Carole Ione. She's written a new memoir of her foremothers, "Pride of the Family: Four Generations of American Women of Color." (Published by Summit Books). It tells the stories of her mother, a journalist, her great-auntie Sistonie, one of the first black women doctors in Washington, D.C., her grandmother Be-Be a vaudeville dancer and later soul food restaurant owner, and her great-grand-mother, Frances Anne "Frank" Rollin Whipper.

Writer and editor Ben Sonnenberg, Junior. Sonnenberg was born into one of New York City's most prominent families. He went on to be a poet and playwright, and he started the influential literary magazine, "Grand Street." Sonnenberg's new memoir, "Lost Property," talks about those events, and about his being stricken with multiple sclerosis. (The book's published by Summit Books).

Author and labor attorney Thomas Geoghegan (GAY-GUN). He was an observer for the dissident faction in a United Mine Workers election in the 1970s and he defended steelworkers stripped of their pension rights in the 1980s. He's written a new book, "Which Side Are You On?: Trying to be for Labor When it's Flat on its Back," which looks at the decline of the labor unions in the 1980s from the view of someone who came to join the union staff as a young idealistic lawyer hoping to use the law as an instrument for social change. (published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux).

Former hostage David Jacobsen. In 1985 he was abducted in Beirut where he was director of the American University of Beirut's Medical Center and was held for 17 months. He was held captive along with Terry Anderson, Tom Sutherland, Ben Weir, and Martin Jenco. He's written about it in, "Hostage: My Nightmare in Beirut." (Published by Donald I. Fine, Inc.) (Interview by Marty Moss-Coane)

Writer Ben Hamper. His funny first-person account of working in GM's auto factory is "Rivethead: Tales from the Assembly Line." Hamper is a third generation auto worker in Flint, Michigan.

Journalist Stryker McGuire. He covered the Nicaraguan revolution for Newsweek where he is Chief of Correspondents. After the war, he came back to New York but discovered that he hadn't settled in his own mind what he experienced in Nicaragua. He began a 20,000 mile driving trip from North America to South America to try and understand what had happened and to get a different look at Latin America. His book, "Streets with No Names," is an account of that trip. (published by Atlantic Monthly Press.) (Interview by Marty Moss-Coane)

Writer John Balaban. Balaban was one of the very few Vietnam-era conscientious objectors who volunteered to go to Vietnam. Once there, he was overwhelmed with the paradoxes of the war...among other things, he found himself picking up a gun, in order to defend a hospital from attack. His memoir of that time, called "Heaven's Face: A Moral Witness in Vietnam" has just been published by Poseidon Press. (Interview by Marty Moss-Coane)

Historian Robert Dallek. Dallek's new biography of President Lyndon Johnson, "Lone Star Rising," has been praised for its scholarship, and for painting a more balanced portrait of LBJ than some other recent biographies. Dallek was nominated for an American Book award for an earlier biography, "Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy." ("Lone Star Rising" is published by Oxford University Press).

The former president of NBC news, Reuven Frank. Franks looks back on his career, and the evolution of TV news, in his new memoir, "Out of Thin Air." (published by Simon and Schuster).

Jazz French horn player Willie Ruff. Ruff's new autobiography, "A Call to Assembly," chronicles his childhood in the South, his enlistment in the army in 1946, his gaining admission to Yale, and his decision to pass on a career in classical music and follow a life in jazz. (It's published by Viking).

South African labor leader Emma Mashinini. Mashinini was Secretary of the Commercial, Catering, and Allied Workers Union of South Africa, one of South Africa's biggest trade unions, and was arrested and detained for six months. Mashinini's autobiography, "Strikes Have Followed Me All My Life," has just been published. (by Routledge).

Part two of our interview with Sonny Bono. Today, he talks about the Sonny and Cher years, their breakup, and his going on to be elected mayor of Palm Springs, California. Bono has a new autobiography, called "And The Beat Goes On" (published by Pocket Books).

The first of a two-part interview with Sonny Bono. Today, Bono discusses his early years in the record business, his work with Phil Specter, and his meeting Cher. Tomorrow, he talks about the Sonny and Cher years, their breakup, and his going on to be elected mayor of Palm Springs, California. Bono has a new autobiography, called "And The Beat Goes On" (published by Pocket Books).

Book critic John Leonard reviews "Wall to Wall," Mary Morris' memoir of her travels through China and the Soviet Union.

Miller was the first executive director of the Major League Baseball Players Association when it was formed in 1966. He helped form a labor union to represent the athletes, which caused the dramatic increase in player's salaries, and ended the system that bound an athlete to one team forever. To some, he's the man who depreciated the value of teams. His memoir is called "A Whole Different Ball Game."

Book critic John Leonard reviews a biography of Paul Scott, who wrote the Raj Quartet, which includes the Jewel in the Crown. The book is written by Hilary Spurling. Leonard knew Scott personally, and says the book does justice to his tragic life.

Journalist Ari Goldman is the religion correspondent for The New York Times. He's written a new book, "The Search for God At Harvard," about the year he took off from his job to attend the Harvard Divinity School. It details his experiences there and how they affected his own faith as an Orthodox Jew.

Bok is the author of several books on the ethics of lying and keeping secrets. Her newest is a memoir about her mother, the Nobel Prize-winning Alva Myrdal, who was called the most modern woman in the world.

Soviet emigre David Gurevich is the author of "From Lenin to Lennon," a memoir about growing up in the 1960s. As a young person in Russia, he became an enthusiast of American pop culture.