Joe Donahue

    Brian Stelter was embedded at the national network morning television shows to research his new book, Top of the Morning: Inside the Cutthroat World of Morning TV, when Good Morning America suddenly swept the Today Show’s ratings streak. He is the only reporter who saw how the whole thing went down.

  Today's panelists are WAMC’s Alan Chartock, newsman Ray Graf and University at Albany Journalism Professor and Investigative Reporter, Rosemary Armao. Joe Donahue moderates.

Topics:

• The President vows to close Gitmo
• Syria Update
• Poll shows support for public surveillance
• Morning After Pill easier to obtain
  

    Manil Suri's new novel, The City of Devi, opens with India and Pakistan on the verge of nuclear war. India is roiled by factional violence between Hindus and Muslims. Bombers strafe citizens, vigilantes settle scores, and terrorists set off dirty bombs around the country as Mumbai boils over with fear and fury. But, at its heart, it is a love story.

  Dr. Richard Besser is chief medical editor at ABC News, and author of the new book Tell Me The Truth, Doctor: Easy-to-Understand Answers to Your Most Confusing and Critical Health Questions.

  Today's panelists are WAMC’s Alan Chartock, and Ray Graf and Mike Spain, Associate Editor of The Times Union. Joe Donahue moderates.

Today's topics include:

• Dredging
• NBA player, Jason Collins announcing that he is gay
• Sexual harassment in jails
  

    For more than a decade, Jay McInerney's vinous essays have been praised by restaurateurs, by esteemed critics, and by the media.

In The Juice: Vinous Veritas pieces originally published in House & Garden and The Wall Street Journal, McInerney provides a master class in the almost infinite varieties of wine and the people and places that produce it.

    Dr. Gina Barreca, author of It's Not That I'm Bitter: How I Learned to Stop Worrying About Visible Panty Lines and Conquered the World, has appeared on 20/20, The Today Show, CNN, the BBC, NPR, Oprah, and Dr. Phil to discuss gender, power, politics, and humor.

Her earlier books include the bestselling They Used to Call Me Snow White But I Drifted: Women's Strategic Use of Humor. She will be the keynote speaker at a fundraiser for Zonta Club of Northampton, MA on Thursday.

    This morning we introduce you a special dance and arts performance coming up on Saturday at the Troy Savings Bank Music Hall - Synesthesia: Taste the Dance. Feel the Colors. Touch the Music.

  Michael Pollan’s new book, Cooked, follows the twists and turns of Pollan’s education in the kitchen. Organizing his journey around the four classical elements —fire, water, air, and earth—Pollan apprentices himself to a series of culinary experts to discover how these elements can transform the stuff of nature into delicious things to eat and drink.

Today's panelists are WAMC’s Ray Graf, and for the fist half of the hour Paul Conti, assistant professor of communications at the College of Saint Rose, and for the second half U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regional administrator Judith Enck.