Parenting & Families

Essayist Harry Stein. Stein wrote the popular "Ethics" column for Esquire Magazine. He writes a syndicated column for the United Features Syndicate. He's written a book titled One of the Guys: The Wising Up of an American Man. In it, he shares his thoughts on why men are the way they are.

British child development expert Penelope Leach. Leach is considered one of the foremost authorities on child care. Leach has said of her work that it is for the moments "when love is impossible ... the seventh time that night that you've woken up and you wonder `is it mine or do all babies behave like this?'" Her books include Your Baby & Child: From Birth to Age Five, Babyhood, Your Baby and Child and The First Six Months. (Interview by Faith Middleton)

Film critic Stephen Schiff reviews "Bright Lights, Big City," the long-awaited adaptation of the best-selling novel by Jay McInerney about life in the fast lane in New York City. The film stars Michael J. Fox, Kiefer Sutherland and Dianne Wiest.

Pianist and bandleader Paul Weston and singer Jo Stafford. They're better known as Jonathan and Darlene Edwards, satirists of inept musicianship.

Humorist Alice Kahn reflects on the difficulty of returning to your childhood home.

Writer Gloria Naylor. Her novels, Linden Hills and the recent Mama Day create a world in which blacks achieve success at the expense of their own history and identity. Naylor's first work, The Women of Brewster Place, won the 1983 American Book Award for First Fiction.

Ken Tucker reviews the home video release of "The Shadow of the Thin Man," the last of the five "Thin Man" movies, a series made in the 30s and 40s and created by Dashiell Hammett that starred William Powell and Myrna Loy as a dashing husband-and-wife detective team.

Dr. David Elkind, a professor and author of books on child development. His new book, Miseducation: Preschoolers at Risk, warns of possible dangers to children who are pushed too hard to achieve too much at too early an age.

Film critic Stephen Schiff reviews the movie "3 Men and a Baby."

Jan Harold Brunvand explores the urban legend about the solid cement car.

Critic-at-Large Laurie Stone discusses the new ABC television series "thirtysomething."

Singer Judy Collins. She's just written an autobiography; it's titled Trust Your Heart.

Actress Colleen Dewhurst. She is currently starring as Eugene O'Neill's widow in the one-woman show "My Gene."

English writer Ian McEwan, whose new novel is called The Child in Time. It's about the loss of a child and the child that endures through adulthood.

TV Critic David Bianculli will preview the new ABC series "thirtysomething."

Adam Hochschild, founder of the leftist magazine "Mother Jones." He's written a memoir about his ambivalent relationship with his father, an industrialist who operated a string of gold and diamond mines in South Africa.

Humorist Alfred Gingold describes the sensation of sorting through a sprawling record collection with a loved one.

Fifty-one-year-old author Avery Corman has a new book called 50. He joins Fresh Air guest host Liane Hansen to talk about the different ways men and women view aging. Corman first rose to prominence with his novel Kramer Versus Kramer.

The renowned soloist says the nature of his instrument demands that he be flexible about also playing supportively in ensemble settings. He talks about how the death of his parents, both of whom were musicians, contributed to his artistic development.

New music composer John Harbison was drawn to classical music because the genre leant itself to longer pieces and a deeper exploration of musical ideas. He often writes for his wife, the violinist Rosemary Harbison.