Michael Covino, principal of Niche Hospitality Group and chair of the Canal District Business Association talks about running three local, independent restaurants in a tough economy.

What do H. Rider Haggard,  Jean-Luc Goddard,  James Joyce, Clint Eastwood,  the Coen brothers, and Gene Roddenberry all have in common?

Many of
us find ourselves confronted with rudeness every day and don’t know
how to respond. From the intrusive cell-phone user who holds loud conversations
in public to the hostile highway driver who cuts one off with a quick
swerve of his car, politeness seems to be on a downward spiral, surprising
us at every turn. P.M. Forni, the author of
Choosing Civility, has the answer. knows that rudeness begets
rudeness and, in The Civility Solution, he shows us what to do when

We speak with former NASA scientist and astrophysicist JEFFREY BENNETT about his wonderful series of science-based books for children, the MAX series: MAX GOES TO THE MOON, MAX GOES TO MARS and MAX GOES TO JUPITER. Max is a dog, and how he gets to explore our solar system and learn about things like gravity and the possibilities of a space elevator form the basis for these colorful, entertaining and informative books for young readers

Did the feature length animation Bambi inspire a sense of concern about the animals of the forest in the 1950s that would later cause those same viewers as adults to become the environmentalists of the 80s? What does the classic housecleaning sequence of Snow White say about American attitudes towards domesticating our wilderness?

Doris Day is nothing less than a full-fledged icon of American entertainment culture, with a stellar career in film, on TV and in music. Though often characterized as “the girl next door”, Ms Day aspired to be much more than that but was hopelessly pigeonholed in squeaky-clean film roles thanks to her husband and manager Marty Melcher. She could have played Mrs. Robinson in “The Graduate”.

Drawing on previously unknown sources, unpublished letters, and
unprecedented access to all the key figures, author and journalist
Philip Norman gives us the most complete and revealing portrait of John
Lennon that is ever likely to be published.

 From the beginning of radio, there were programs about science!

Jeff Hunter of Assumption College & Robert Thomas of the Martin
Luther King Jr. Business Empowerment Center.  They'll talk about fighting poverty and giving hope with a college education.

BERND HEINRICH is the best-selling author of such books as Mind of the Raven and Winter World, as well as being a professor of biology at the University of Vermont.