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Author Anne Cherian was 24 when she first read — and was enthralled by — Beryl Markham's autobiography West With the Night, a beautifully written retelling of the aviator's childhood in Africa and her daring solo flight across the Atlantic.

Jane Austen's original text has been ever so slightly altered to accommodate brand new scenes of the Bennet girls forming "The Pentagram of Death" and taking on hordes of the undead, along with a ninja or two.

Frances Perkins was the first woman named to a U.S. president's Cabinet. As FDR's secretary of labor, she led the fight to establish Social Security. Biographer Kirstin Downey discusses The Woman Behind the New Deal.

Journalist Evan Wright has written about the lives of porn stars, anarchists and con artists in many mainstream magazines. He talks about a new collection of his stories: Hella Nation.

Noted historian and pioneering Duke University Professor John Hope Franklin died yesterday at the age of 94. The legendary educator was widely respected for chronicling the African-American experience. Franklin's friends discuss his lasting legacy.

Years before the current economic crisis, former derivatives trader Frank Partnoy warned about the dangers of tricky financial trading. He joins Fresh Air to explain how we got where we are.

Many thousands of people took part in the campaign to restore Pakistan's chief justice after he was ousted by the country's military ruler more than two years ago. But one man stood out amid that noisy throng of black-suited lawyers, civil activists and party cadres, who are now celebrating the judge's return to the bench: 85-year-old Roedad Khan.

Ron Suskind's A Hope in the Unseen tracks a familiar story — an ambitious kid's escape from the inner city. Author Susan Jane Gilman says Suskind treats his subject with such care that this nonfiction tale has the impact of an epic novel.

Adams photographed 13 wars, and made some of the most iconic images of the Vietnam War. But the Pulitzer Prize he won for one photograph left him conflicted for the rest of his life.

Twenty-seven years after his death, the life and work of John Cheever are in the spotlight again. A new biography chronicles Cheever's chameleon-like evolution, and moves beyond his alcoholism and his affairs to show the writer's lighter side.