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Burmese writer Pascal Khoo Thwe has written his autobiography From the Land of Green Ghosts: A Burmese Odyssey. (HarperCollins). Thwe grew up part of a tiny remote tribe in Burma which practiced a combination of ancient animist and Buddhist customs mixed with Catholicism. He was the first member of his community to study English at University. When a brutal military dictatorship took over Burma, Thwe became a guerrilla fighter in the movement for democracy.

Czech writer Arnost Lustig is considered one of the country's most prominent writers. His new novel, Lovely Green Eyes, is the story of a 15-year-old girl in Auschwitz and the compromises she makes in order to stay alive. Lustig himself survived Theresienstadt, Auschwitz and Buchenwald camps. His family died in the gas chambers. Lustig teaches at American University in Washington, D.C. He is also featured in the new documentary Fighter, in which he and long-time friend Jan Wiener retrace wartime memories.

She's put together a book of photographs of and from the museum's collection of human oddities and outdated medical models. The Mutter Museum is in Philadelphia, Pa., and is one of the last medical museums from the 19th century. It originated with the collection of Dr. Thomas Dent Mutter, who gathered unique specimens for teaching purposes. The museum displays many strange human artifacts, such as a slice of a face, amputated limbs and a plaster cast of the conjoined twins Chang and Eng Bunker.

Doctors Quentin Young and Marcia Angell of Physicians for a National Health Care Program (PNHP). They advocate a single-payer health insurance plan, in which the government finances health care, but choice of provider remains mostly private. Young is Senior Attending Physician at Michael Reese Hospital and serves as National Coordinator of PNHP. Angell is head of the Physician Working Group and is a senior lecturer in social medicine at Harvard Medical School.

He is professor of psychiatry and psychology at the Graduate School University Center and director of The Center on Violence and Human Survival at John Jay College of Criminal Justice at The City University of New York. He has written books on many topics, including a Japanese cult that released poison gas in the Tokyo subways, Nazi doctors, Hiroshima survivors and Vietnam vets. He will discuss the emotional impact of the Columbia shuttle disaster, as well as the impact of an impending war in Iraq, and the looming nuclear crisis in North Korea.

Actor John Spencer. He plays Leo McGarry, the Chief of Staff to the President in the tv series The West Wing. The show won the coveted Peabody Award in its first season. This week it began it's second season. The show is set in the Whitehouse, and concerning a fictional democratic President and his staff. In the first season of the show, Spencer's character has had to deal with his former alcoholism becoming a matter of public scrutiny. Spencer previously was a regular on L.A. Law and began his career on The Patty Duke Show.

National Correspondent for The New York Times, Nicholas Kristof and Times Foreign Correspondent Sheryl Wundunn. The two won a Pulitzer prize for their coverage of the Tiananmen Square. They've collaborated on the new book, Thunder from the East: Portrait of a Rising Asia (

Journalist Robert Sullivan. His first book, The Meadowlands (now in paperback) an urban adventure in the wilds of the marshy dumping area between New Jersey and New York was praised for its wit, imagination and intelligence. His new book A Whale Hunt (Scribner) chronicles the two years he spent watching the Makah Indian tribe in Washington state as they prepared for and attempted their first whale hunt in over 70 years. But they didnt do it alone: they were surrounded by angry protestors and hounded by the press.

Former theater critic Frank Rich. He's just published his memoir Ghost Light, (Random House). In it he examines the influence of his childhood on his adult career: his parents' divorce and an early curiosity for theater. He was chief drama critic for the New York Times from 1980-1983 and has been an op-ed columnist for that paper since 1994. He lives in New York City.

Crittenden is a former reporter for The New York Times. Shes the author of the new book The Price of Motherhood: Why the Most Important Job in the World is Still the Least Valued. In the book, Crittenden writes about the cost to mothers when their work is unrecognized and undervalued. For instance, because child care is not counted as labor, caregivers receive no Social Security credits, and as a result they lose out on retirement income. Crittenden spent five years research on her book talking to economists, socicologists, and to mothers.