Parenting & Families

Robert MacNeil hosts the Newshour program with Jim Lehrer. His latest book is about how his childhood experiences led him to a career in the news, and the importance of language and diction in his professional life.

The prolific and award-winning author is uncomfortable with fame, and has kept a low public profile. Now he opens up in a new collection of autobiographical essays. Updike uses his own body as a jumping-off point for his ruminations.

Award-winning book reviewer Jonathan Yardley has recently published a memoir called Our Kind of People, about his family, his parents' marriage, and WASP culture. He says that, at the age of 47, he was finally able to see his mother and father as people -- not just his parents. He joins Fresh Air to talk about his book, as well as his work as a critic.

John Irving began his career writing short books that were critically-acclaimed but commercially unsuccessful. His more sprawling novels, beginning with The World According to Garp, proved to be more popular. Book critic John Leonard reviews Irving's latest, A Prayer for Owen Meany, which he says is fatalistic, religious, and unexpectedly funny.

Critic Ken Tucker reviews the Oscar-winning 1943 film, which was credited with galvanizing support for the Allies during World War II. Contrary to some contemporary attitudes toward the movie, critic Ken Tucker says Mrs. Miniver critiques, rather than celebrates, bourgeois life.

Carl Bernstein, who broke the Watergate story with his colleague Bob Woodward, has a new memoir about his parents, called Loyalties. Bernstein's mother and father were communist activists during the McCarthy era, and were monitored by the FBI.

John Leonard reviews fellow book critic Jonathan Yardley's new memoir, Our Kind of People. Leonard disagrees with Yardley's world view, but his real criticism lies in how the author glosses over the enduring literary and cultural legacy of WASPs in the United States.

The minimalist composer's new piece, Different Trains, contrasts Reich's childhood experiences crossing the country by rail to visit his divorced parents with the memories of Holocaust survivors' journey to concentration camps. The music incorporates recordings of several interviews into the orchestration.

Critic-at-large Laurie Stone says none of Stuart's past work could have prepared her for his newest novel. The story is narrated by a troubled adolescent boy who grapples with the incestual relationship between his father and sister.

The Soap actor stars in a new sitcom, about a divorced man and his children. TV critic David Bianculli says that, unlike Guillaume's career and talents, the show has a long way to go.

Book critic John Leonard says that Warner's third novel is her best. The book, about a family coping with the loss of its patriarch, succeeds because it questions ideas as much as it advances them.

Film critic Stephen Schiff admits he's instantly charmed by movies about unfamiliar worlds. He says the new road movie Powwow Highway, about two American Indians confronting the development of tribal lands, has promise, but is ineptly written and directed. But, somehow, Schiff didn't mind watching it.

Kingston's new book, Tripmaster Monkey, is about a fifth-generation Chinese American man in the 1960s, who tries to find a balance between his two cultures. She joins Fresh Air to talk about her life as a first-generation immigrant, her relationship with her mother, and how she developed her voice as a storyteller.

Writer ALICE WALKER. She's best known for the novel The Color Purple, a seminal account of the life of poor, rural blacks in the south as experienced by the women. The novel revolves around letters that Celie, the principal character, addesses to God after her father has impregnated her for the second time. The Color Purple won the American Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and was later adapted for the screen by Steven Speilberg.

Band leader and composer Mercer Ellington is the son of Duke Ellington, and leads the Duke Ellington Band. As a young man, Mercer Ellington played trombone, French horn and trumpet in his father's ensemble. Two recent Mercer Ellington albums have won wide acclaim: "Digital Duke" and "For Ellington," performed by the Modern Jazz Quartet.

The holiday has been a perpetual cause of stress for children since it was established by President Woodrow Wilson in 1914. Guest commentator Ilene Segalove reflects on the anxiety she felt over the years deciding on the perfect gift for her own mother, only to realize that something simple, homemade, and from the heart was best.

Critic-at-large Laurie Stone review Sarah P. Stuart's debut novel -- a fast-moving coming-of-age story about a sister and her emotionally unstable brothers.

The New York-based Hughes is known for her daring, lesbian-themed work. Critic Laurie Stone reviews her newest piece, about the incestual relationship between a mother and daughter.

Le Carre is the pseudonym of writer David Cromwell, who used to be a spy himself. His newest novel, The Russia House, considers the glasnost reforms of the Soviet Union's Gorbachev administration. Some of Le Carre's past novels include The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, The Little Drummer Girl, and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.

Bob Elliott was half of the comedy team Bob and Ray; his son Chris appears regularly on the Late Show with David Letterman. They've written a joint memoir called Daddy's Boy, in which Chris recounts a childhood memory, and Bob offers his rebuttal.