Dave Davies

Former Jeopardy! champ Ken Jennings charts what he calls "the wide, weird world of geography" in his latest book, Maphead. He profiles Google Maps engineers, geocachers, imaginary mapmakers, map collectors, geography bee contestants and "road geeks."

Journalist Alissa J. Rubin has spent most of the past 10 years reporting on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. On Thursday's Fresh Air, Rubin talks about the growing corruption and violence in Afghanistan, from which 33,000 U.S. troops are expected to withdraw by the summer of 2012.

The A&P changed the way Americans do their grocery shopping, but it did so at a cost -- thousands of mom-and-pop corner stores closed as the chain grew. Economic historian Marc Levinson chronicles the rise and fall of the grocery giant in The Great A&P and the Struggle for Small Business in America.