The Birth of Las Vegas Chronicled in T.V. Miniseries.

Naturalist, explorer and writer Peter Matthiessen. For over three decades he's been writing critically acclaimed works of fiction and nonfiction. His nonfiction includes the books The Tree Where Man Was Born, which was nominated for the National Book Award, and The Snow Leopard, which won that award. He's also written several novels, including At Play in the Fields of the Lord, also nominated for the National Book Award, and Far Tortuga.

Classical music critic Lloyd Schwartz reviews the recordings of music by composer, Sofia Gubaidulina (So-FEE-ah Goo-bye-DOO-lee-na). She's the Soviet Union's leading female composer.

Writer and shopper Paul Rudnick, and his mother, Selma. Paul Runick, best-known for his play Poor Little Lambs, for the novel Social Disease, and for his essays in such publications as Esquire and Vanity Fair, has just published a novel about, among other things, a mother and son shopping team. Titled I'll Take It, the thinly veiled autobiographical novel is about the developed inability to resist the temptation to shop, and about the quest for ultimate bliss - a good sale.