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The Mad Ones is the tale of real-life gangsters Larry, Albert "Kid Blast" and "Crazy" Joe Gallo — a Mafia clan that inspired Bob Dylan's "Joey" and were a major inspiration for The Godfather.

A book about the treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay has led to an investigation by the Spanish court. In Torture Team, Philippe Sands alleges that high-ranking members of the Bush administration were responsible for instituting harsh interrogation tactics.

Intent on documenting the effects of climate change, nature photographer James Balog ventured into ice-bound regions with 26 time-lapse cameras.

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the president of Liberia, is the first democratically elected woman leader in Africa. Since taking office in 2006, Johnson Sirleaf has fought to reconstruct the state and rescue Liberia's failing economy.

Peggy Orenstein wrote in the July 16 edition of the New York Times Magazine about the use of donor eggs in vitro fertilization. It's a topic she knows: Orenstein pursued six years of treatments, including egg donation, before giving birth to her daughter. Her memoir is Waiting for Daisy: A Tale of Two Continents, Three Religions, Five Infertility Doctors, an Oscar, an Atomic Bomb, a Romantic Night and One Woman's Quest to Become a Mother.

Investigative reporter David Cay Johnston explores in his new book how in recent years, government subsidies and new regulations have quietly funneled money from the poor and the middle class to the rich and politically connected.

The cost of war in Iraq reaches beyond the bullets and bombs, says Linda Bilmes, co-author (with Joseph Stiglitz) of the new book, The Three Trillion Dollar War. They join Fresh Air to talk about potential long-term expenses from the war.

James Hansen, a leading NASA climate scientist, says the Bush administration has tried to silence his warnings about global warming. Writer and scientist Mark Bowen wrote a book on the affair: Censoring Science: Inside the Political Attack on Dr. James Hansen and the Truth of Global Warming.

Counterterrorism expert served for 30 years, under several presidents; he joins Dave Davies to discuss what he describes as a culture of mediocrity in U.S. national-security programs.

After American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon on September 11, it took firefighters three days to stop the blaze. Firefighter Patrick Creed and journalist Rick Newman discuss the Pentagon blaze and the book they wrote about it, Firefight.

In her new book, The Wisdom of Whores, epidemiologist Elizabeth Pisani interviews sex workers, drug users, health officials and bureaucrats in an effort to determine why 40 million people are living with HIV — and what can be done to curb the epidemic.

For soldier Brian Turner, words have the impact of bullets. His poems provide a first- person account of war; The New York Times praised their "attention to both the terrors and the beauty he found among Iraq's ruins."

Lt. Col. John Nagl wrote the textbook on counterinsurgency — literally. Nagl was part of the team that drafted a U.S. Army field manual on counterinsurgency. Having completed his tour in Iraq, Nagl talks about how military theory was put into practice in the region.

The quest to understand what makes us us has long been one of humankind's great pursuits. Neuroscientist Michael Gazzaniga has made progress: He's the author of Human: The Science Behind What Makes Us Unique.

He went from performing in an empty San Francisco coffee house to hosting the Oscars. In his memoir Born Standing Up, out now in paperback, comedian Steve Martin talks about his early days as a stand-up comic — and why he quit.

Following the attacks of September 11, 2001, the National Security Agency stepped up its efforts to collect intelligence domestically by filtering millions of phone conversations and e-mail messages. In his new book, The Shadow Factory, journalist James Bamford reveals that the ultra-secret agency has half a million people on its watch lists.

An internal Justice Department investigation has concluded that the controversial U.S. attorney firings of 2006 were of a partisan political nature. One of the seven fired attorneys, Iglesias discusses his book, In Justice, an insider's account of the affair.

NBC's newly appointed chief White House correspondent talks with Dave Davies about his new book, How Barack Obama Won: A State-by-State Guide to the Historic 2008 Presidential Election.

Journalist David E. Hoffman revisits the high stakes maneuverings of the Cold War arms race and details the inner-workings of the Soviet nuclear program in his new book.

P. W. Singer explores the advances of robotics in warfare in his book Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and 21st Century Conflict.

Food scientist Massimo Marcone travels the world's remotest corners to investigate bizarre food "delicacies": cheese infested with squirming maggots, coffee brewed from coffee beans extracted from the feces of a cat-like creature, and so on. Marconi's new book is In Bad Taste? The Adventures and Science Behind Food Delicacies.

A middle-aged woman awakens one morning to a sense of dread, a malaise so deep that she studiously analyzes her life — both past and present — to uncover its source. So begins Hilma Wolitzer's new book, The Doctor's Daughter.

Five years ago, novelist Ayelet Waldman sparked a controversy — and wound up on Oprah to defend herself — when she wrote in an essay that she loved her husband more than her children. Her memoir about that experience, Bad Mother has just been released in paperback.

In One Nation Under Dog, journalist Michael Schaffer argues that the $43 billion industry that's grown around our obsession with our pets is more a reflection of the society we live in than anything else.

Patti Smith's memoir Just Kids, just nominated for a National Book Award, describes her path of artistic self discovery and her relationship with the provocative photographer, Robert Mapplethorpe.