Sarah Smiley & Rob Jolles

Are you on the road a lot? Or is it your spouse who's gone for days, or weeks, at a time? America is the land of the road warrior. Business executives routinely travel thousands of miles a year. Now one of the warriors, Rob Jolles, has written a helpful book of inspiration called The Way of the Road Warrior. We'll meet him in a few minutes. But first, it can be hard growing up as a military brat, but what may be harder is realizing that your experience has not even prepared you for the life of a military spouse. Sarah Smiley is the daughter of a career Navy pilot who married a Navy flight instructor. She writes with uncommon frankness about her life in a memoir called Going Overboard.

Gen. Janis Karpinski & Tom Wiener

Today we're going to hear from the head of the Library of Congress Veterans History Project, Tom Wiener, who's editor of a new book called Forever A Soldier, oral histories, letters and diaries from World War One to the Persian Gulf War. But first, the former commanding general who was in charge of the Abu Ghraib prison at the time of the prison abuse scandal tells her side of the story. Janis Karpinski's book is called One Woman’s Army.

Kim Stanley Robinson

Scientists have a gravely important task ahead of them, in Kim Stanley Robinson's thriller Fifty Degrees Below. Thanks to global warming -- which Robinson warned us about in his previous novel Forty Signs of Rain -- the Gulf Stream has stopped bringing warm air to the eastern U.S. and Europe. Wintertime Washington DC resembles Antarctica, and another Ice Age looms unless an ambitious plan succeeds.

Katherine Albrecht & Ian Urbina

Today we're going to meet Ian Urbina of the New York Times, who has collected some ingenious, hilarious, and occasionally downright disturbing stories of how people deal with the everyday things that get on their nerves. His book is called Life’s Little Annoyances. But first, do you know who is spying on you? Katherine Albrecht, the author of Spychips says you might be surprised at what kind of information you're surrendering without even knowing it.

Brian Hayes & Lawrence Krauss

Today we'll meet the author of an unusual field guide -- a field guide to the kinds of structures you probably see many times a day and think nothing about. Brian Hayes calls his book Infrastructure. We'll talk with him in a few minutes, but first we'll meet physicist Lawrence Krauss, whose new book Hiding in the Mirror asks .. how many dimensions are there in our universe? Krauss says he was actually inspired, in part, by Rod Serling's "Twilight Zone."

Peter Ackroyd & Edmund Morris

It's Shakespeare-and-Beethoven day here on THE BOOKCAST, as we talk with the authors of new biographies of these two giants of the arts. Peter Ackroyd has written Shakespeare: The Biography, a volume which will totally immerse you in the London that Shakespeare knew. We'll talk with Peter Ackroyd in a few minutes, but first, Edmund Morris captures and explains the genius of Ludwig van Beethoven, in his contribution to the "Eminent Lives" series, called Beethoven: The Universal Composer.

David Wolman & Michael Cunningham

For most women, hair is identity. And perhaps especially so, for African-American women. Now noted photographer Michael Cunningham captures the beauty of black women's hair in his book Queens. We'll talk with him in a few minutes, but first, let's meet lefthander David Wolman, who set out to find out more about his fellow lefties. The result is his book A Left-Hand Turn Around the World.

Thomas Barnett & Stansfield Turner

Every president needs a reliable director of central intelligence. The national security depends on it. But as the new book Burn Before Reading by former CIA director Admiral Stansfield Turner shows, the relationship between a president and his DCI is often strained, contentious, and even downright hostile. We'll talk with Admiral Turner in a few minutes. But first, Thomas Barnett, whose 2004 book The Pentagon's New Map has become required reading inside the Beltway. His followup book, called Blueprint for Action,

Denene Millner, Angela Burt-Murray, and Mitzi Miller & Nina Foxx

Three women make a promise to each other at a New Year's Eve wedding they're all attending -- within one year, they pledge, each will be engaged. Can they pull it off? That's the premise behind The Vow, the new novel by authors Denene Millner, Angela Burt-Murray, and Mitzi Miller. We'll talk with all three of them in a few minutes, but first, a conversation with the author of another book about marriage, and the challenge of finding a suitable spouse. The new novel by Nina Foxx is called Marrying Up.

Sujata Massey "The Typhoon Lover"

Rei Shimura is a Japanese-American antiques dealer, but in Sujata Massey's eighth mystery featuring her popular heroine, Rei becomes something much more than that, in a role she never thought she would play. Massey's book is called The Typhoon Lover.

Robert Dunn & Daylle Deanna Schwartz

It's the big prize for a professional musician -- the record deal. It's the mark of true success, assurance of fame and wealth, right? Wait a minute. Independent music consultant Daylle Deanna Schwartz shows why a record deal is not for everyone, in her book I Don't Need A Record Deal! But first, a new novel about musicians on a mission. A bus full of musical acts is on a frantic three-week tour in the spring of 1964, in Robert Dunn's novel Soul Cavalcade. For one of the musicians, however, the tour may be more than she bargained for.

Walter Rodgers & Nathaniel Fick

Today, two views of the war in Iraq. Veteran CNN correspondent and former embedded war journalist Walter Rodgers shows us the war through a reporter's eyes in his book Sleeping With Custer And the 7th Cavalry. But first, ex-Marine Nathaniel Fick helps us see the war in a new book called One Bullet Away.

Sherwin Nuland & Julie Galambush

It's been said that Maimonides was a Renaissance man before there was a Renaissance. Now a new book called Maimonides reexamines, in a compact way, the life of one of Judaism's greatest figures -- its author is well-known physician Dr. Sherwin Nuland. But first, a woman who was an ordained Baptist minister until her conversion to Judaism. Julie Galambush is now a religion professor, and author of a new book that reveals the Jewishness of the New Testament. It's called The Reluctant Parting.

Robert Bausch & Aaron Hamburger

When her rebellious son seems to have fallen off the path to responsible adulthood, a middle-aged woman from the Midwest hauls her family off to Israel, in hopes of bringing about a transformation, in the new novel by Aaron Hamburger called Faith for Beginners. We'll talk with him today, but first, the acclaimed Robert Bausch. An oceanside tourist town is being terrorized by a bully, and the sheriff is bound to stop him -- if only he can get beyond the ghosts of his past, as Bausch imagines it in his new novel Out of Season.

Carole Radziwill & Hazel Rowley

Today, two new books about extraordinary relationships. In What Remains, Carole Radziwill talks about her marriage to Anthony Radziwill, the nephew of Jackie Kennedy Onassis, and their close friendship with John Kennedy and his wife Carolyn Bessette. But first, Hazel Rowley, whose new book Tête-á-Tête explains the iconic relationship between French writer, existentialist, and feminist Simone de Beauvoir and writer-philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre. They never married, and they were anything but monogamous, but for half a century they were inseparable companions.

Jack Klugman & Alan Nadel

In its early years television was only available in black and white. And now the author of a new book argues that that is also an apt way to express the kind of America early television showed us: black, and white. And it was very clear, he says, which one was supposed to represent genuine America. We'll hear from him in a few minutes. But first .. just how similar were Jack Klugman and Tony Randall to the characters they played on TV's "The Odd Couple" in the '70s? To hear Klugman tell it, in his new memoir Tony and Me, the biggest similarity may have been the close bond of friendship -- between Oscar and Felix, and between Jack and Tony.

Steve Alten "The Loch"

Laugh if you will, but the Loch Ness monster may be real, says thriller writer Steve Alten, who claims his new book The Loch is based on the latest scientific findings. The way Alten has crafted his story, the hunt for the monster -- which is nothing like what pop culture would have you believe it is -- holds another mystery, too, as a man searches for the truth about the murder his father stands accused of.

Richard Clarke & Tony Blankley

America and the west are being threatened by radical Islam, according to the authors of two new books: one fiction, the other nonfiction. Richard Clarke is the former White House counterterrorism chief, whose 2004 nonfiction bestseller Against All Enemies touched off controversy over the Bush administration's response to the September 11th attacks. His new novel The Scorpion's Gate carries the claim, "Sometimes you can tell more truth through fiction." We'll meet him in a few minutes, but first, Washington Times editorial page editor Tony Blankley warns in his new book The West's Last Chance that the threat posed by radical Islam could be greater than the threat our parents faced from Adolf Hitler's Nazis.

Octavia Butler & Wendy Alec

Today two tales of the supernatural -- one inspired by the Bible, the other by the tradition of Bram Stoker and Anne Rice. The renowned Octavia Butler's new vampire novel is called Fledgling. Wendy Alec, the cofounder of GOD TV, has written a Bible-based novel called The Fall of Lucifer.

Peter Schweizer & Tammy Bruce

Hypocritical liberals beware: we're going to be talking today with Peter Schweizer on his new book Do As I Say (Not As I Do), in which Schweizer shows us how well folks like Al Franken, Nancy Pelosi, and Michael Moore practice what they preach. But first, syndicated radio talk show host Tammy Bruce shows us how to use the power of the individual to save our nation from extremists, in her book The New American Revolution.

Simon Winchester & Mary Roach

Where do you expect you'll wind up after you die? Once they've put your body in the ground, or rendered it to the dust from whence you came, what then? Mary Roach tries to find out what modern-day science knows or thinks it knows about the afterlife in her new book Spook. We'll talk with her in a few minutes. But first, writer Simon Winchester, whose academic training was in geology, takes a fresh look at the great 1906 San Francisco earthquake, and figures out how that disaster figured into a year that was full of natural diasters, in his book A Crack in the Edge of the World.

Scott Turow & Peter Levinson

The music of the Greatest Generation was swing, and it was personified by trombonist and bandleader Tommy Dorsey. Now, in the first biography of Dorsey in 30 years, Peter Levinson reveals the man who may have been America's first "rock star." But first, a novel that takes us back to World War Two, Scott Turow's Ordinary Heroes, the story of a journalist whose most difficult assignment ever challenges him to find the truth about his father.

John Hope Franklin & Dr. Price Cobbs

Today THE BOOKCAST is honored to feature interviews with two distinguished figures from the American civil rights movement -- Dr. John Hope Franklin, historian, advisor to two presidents, and recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, talks about his new autobiography Mirror to America. But first, Dr. Price Cobbs, psychiatrist and author, who also writes about his own life in a new book called My American Life.

Ray Flynt "Unforgiving Shadows"

A Philadelphia private eye is dragged into a painful past, in Ray Flynt's debut mystery Unforgiving Shadows. Brad Frame has been trying, for over ten years, to deal with the painful memories of the murders of his mother and sister. And now it looks like he may get answers -- whether he wants them or not.

Peter Mayle & Liza Donnelly

You've seen her work for years, if you read "The New Yorker" -- Liza Donnelly is one of a small number of women cartoonists at "The New Yorker," and her new book Funny Ladies is a history of the women who have drawn cartoons for the magazine since the 1920s. But first, Peter Mayle -- author of A Year in Provence and several other bestsellers -- takes us inside the French bakery he's been telling us about for years, for expert tips on baking real French bread. His book is called Confessions of a French Baker.

Simon Blackburn & James Lasdun

Truth. What is it, and who gets to decide? And what are the consequences of a lie? Two new books come at those questions from different angles. James Lasdun does it in fiction, in his novel Seven Lies. But first we'll meet philosopher Simom Blackburn, who calls his nonfiction examination Truth: A Guide.

Eric Weiner & Moises Naim

Wealth. Money. Trade. Legal and otherwise .. that's our topic today, as we meet the authors of two new books. "Foreign Policy" editor Moises Naím shows, in his book Illicit, how smugglers and copycats are significantly altering the global economy. But first, it's Eric Weiner's history of Wall Street, What Goes Up.

Doris Kearns Goodwin & Sean Wilentz

Our political leaders constantly talk about the power of democracy. They often speak of it as a goal to aim for, an ideal of governance. A new book shows, however, that our own democracy took decades to evolve, in a process that was neither easy nor certain. We'll talk with author Sean Wilentz on his book The Rise of American Democracy in a few minutes. But first, a fresh look at the presidency of Abraham Lincoln, in Doris Kearns Goodwin's book Team of Rivals.

Lemony Snicket & Alan Zweibel

Today, a fanciful novel by former "Saturday Night Live" writer Alan Zweibel, about an overweight, stressed-out suburban husband and father who's trying to pump some meaning into his life by running the New York City Marathon. But first, unfortunate listener, it is my sad and appalling duty to introduce you to our first upsetting author. Daniel Handler is the self-described "literary, legal and social representative" -- and alter ego -- of the aggressively elusive Lemony Snicket, whose new book for young readers is called The Penultimate Peril.

Margaret Cho & Saleemah Abdul-Ghafur

What is it like, growing up Muslim and female in the United States today? A new book edited by Muslim activist Saleemah Abdul-Ghafur called Living Islam Out Loud seeks to provide insight -- she asked her fellow Muslim women to write about everything from relationships and sex to activism and spirituality. But first, a popular comedian with a serious message. Korean-American Margaret Cho rails against the white male power structure in her new book I Have Chosen to Stay and Fight.