Terry Gross

Writer David Rakoff's glass is never half full. In Half Empty, his latest essay collection, Rakoff explains the powers of pessimistic thought as he analyzes topics such as a pornography trade fair, his neurotic childhood and his recent cancer diagnosis.

Avant-garde composer and cabaret singer Theo Bleckmannn has been a mainstay on the New York music scene for 15 years. His newest album, I Dwell in Possibility, features music boxes, megaphones and the autoharp.

We listen back to excerpts from a 1988 interview with the NBC broadcaster, whose fascination with linguistic excess led to a series of books about the English language. During his long career Newman covered President Kennedy's assassination and the Six-Day War. He died on Aug. 13 at age 91.

The plot shakeups at the beginning of this season's Mad Men have left Jon Hamm's character Don Draper a broken man. Hamm talks about Draper's evolution, details how he auditioned for the role and talks about his newest movie, Ben Affleck's crime thriller The Town.

Many of Spencer's novels feature a turning point -- a dreadful, unplanned act committed by one of the characters. In his latest book, Man in the Woods, a carpenter accidentally kills a man, which leads him to question himself and his relationship with God.

There are 10 times more microbial cells on and in our bodies than there are human cells. And these bacteria aren't just there for the ride. Dr. Jeffrey Gordon explains how they contribute to the physiology of the human body and why they may hold the key to fighting some diseases.

In Making Our Democracy Work: A Judge's View, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer outlines his ideas about the Constitution and about the way the United States legal system works. Breyer explains how the justices debate each case on their docket, why he interprets the Constitution as a living document, and details what he thinks is the worst decision the high court has ever made.

More than 6 million African-Americans moved from the South to cities in the Northeast and Midwest between 1915 and 1970. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Isabel Wilkerson documents the resulting demographic and social changes in her history of the Great Migration, The Warmth of Other Suns.

Author Timothy Egan argues in The Big Burn that the forest fire of 1910 -- the largest in American history -- actually saved the forests, even as its flames charred the trees. It helped rally public support, Egan explains, behind Theodore Roosevelt's push to protect national lands.

After a lifetime of acting, the 85-year-old Hal Holbrook is still racking up new accomplishments. In 2008, he received his first Oscar nomination for his performance in Into The Wild. Last year, he starred in That Evening Sun. Now, he has a reoccurring role on the new FX series Sons of Anarchy.