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Are doctors rationing health care? Health policy analyst Gregg Bloche says doctors routinely compromise the principles of the Hippocratic Oath when they decide which expensive tests and treatments they can and can't provide, in order to please lawmakers, lawyers and insurance companies.

The famed writer doled out hundreds of letters to friends, enemies, multiple wives, ex-wives and lovers. Writer Rebecca Newberger Goldstein recommends a hefty collection of Bellow's works of correspondence — brimming with savory morsels of masterful prose.

In Art and Madness, her memoir of the literary 1950s, writer Anne Roiphe describes going into labor by herself in a snowdrift, unable to wake her sleeping playwright husband. Over the years, she learns her own power, charting her course through feminism and a life in art.

Songwriter Hugh Martin, who co-wrote the classic song "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" for Judy Garland's 1944 movie, Meet Me in St. Louis died on Friday. He was 96. Fresh Air remembers Martin with highlights from a 1989 interview.

Kamila Sidiqi braved Taliban restrictions and an oppressive environment to open a dressmaking shop in her home, eventually employing over 100 women. Journalist Gayle Tzemach Lemmon wrote about Sidiqi's business and social venture in her book, The Dressmaker of Khair Khana..

Frank Calabrese Jr. has written a memoir about bringing down his father's murderous Chicago crime family. In Operation Family Secrets, Frank details how he helped the FBI convict his father of several murders by wearing a hidden wire and taping his father's conversations.

When writer Jonathan Evison reads a book, he wants full immersion — emotionally, intellectually and sensually. He suggests three wild, Western adventure tales that will pick you up, knock you down and leave you breathless.

Jerusalem has many identities — some real, some imagined. It's known as "the city of peace," but author James Carroll identifies it as the "home base of religious violence." In his new book Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Carroll traces the history of this holy city and how it has shaped the modern world.

Not too long ago, African-Americans played a much bigger role in baseball. In the mid-1970s, a quarter of all players were black Americans. Today, it's one in 10. Baseball historian Rob Ruck writes about how that happened in his new book, Raceball: How the Major Leagues Colonized the Black and Latin Game.

The 40-pound, six-volume, $625 and 2,438-page cookbook celebrates the science of cooking. But at that price — and with such exactingly detailed "recipes" — who's gonna buy it?