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Language commentator GEOFFREY NUNBERG on why books will never be osolete.

Crime writer JAMES ELLROY. He sets his novels in 1950's LA, where he grew up. His series of novels, "LA Quartet," was a bestseller. His latest novel is called "Hollywood Nocturnes." (Otto Penzler Books). When he was ten, his mother was murdered near their LA home. He wrote an article about returning to LA to go through the police files on his mother for this month's issue of "Gentleman's Quarterly" where he is a contributing editor. He'll talk today about how his mother's murder led to his crime writing

2: Writer, feminist, organizer, and the founder of Ms. Magazine, GLORIA STEINEM. She has a new book of essays, "Moving Beyond Words, (Simon & Schuster). In one of the essays she wonders -- what if Freud were female? -- and imagines what life would be like if one of the most "enduring, infuential, and fiercely defended thinkers" in Western civilization were Dr. Phyllis Freud. In her new book STEINEM also reflects on turning 60.

2: Novelist WILTON BARNHARDT. He's getting alot of press and praise for his new novel, "Gospel," (St. Martin's Press) an 800-page saga about a present-day search for a lost gospel. It's been described as an "intellectual detective novel. . . written on the grand scale." (Library Journal). And, author Tony Hillerman writes of the book, "every ten years comes a novel so delightful, so exciting, that you want to grab perfect strangers and tell 'em about it." BARNHARDT's first novel was "Emma Who Saved My Life."

Folk singer JOAN BAEZ. A leading figure in the heyday of the Greenwich Village folk scene, BAEZ has continued to use her music in the service of various political causes, including a number of human rights organizations. In 1987, she published an autobiography called "And a Voice to Sing with: A Memoir." (Summit Books) Most recently, BAEZ has performed at the Amnesty International's "Conspiracy of Hope" and "Human Rights Now!" concerts, and has been involved in human rights work for Bosnia . Her latest album, "Play Me Backwards," (Virgin Records) was released in 1992.

Elementary school principal MADELINE CARTWRIGHT took over the run-down Blaine Elementary School in a run-down, drug-infested neighborhood in North Philadelphia and turned it into a school that works. One of her first acts when she took over the school was to get down on her hands and knees and scrub the foul-smelling children's bathroom. CARTWRIGHT got parents involved in the school, made it a safe place for the children to learn, brought up test scores and attendance, and became the subject of a a 1990 New York Times Magazine cover story: "Hope in Hell's Classroom." Now she's written her own story of Blaine Elementary School: "For the Children: Lessons from a Visionary Principal." (Doub

2: SUSAN WALKER is refugee specialist working with Physicians for Human Rights, an organization of health professionals which investigates and tries to prevent violations of international human rights law. She was recently a member of a team that conducted an "early warning" assessment of Burundi, the country which borders Rwanda. The team warns that Burundi may soon face a bloody civil conflict similar to Rwanda's.

DR. MARK FEINBERG is the director of the Virology Research Laboratory at San Francisco General Hospital and the Associate Director of the UCSF Center for AIDS Research. He just returned from the 10th International Conference on AIDS in Japan. For the past ten years, FEINBERG has been studying how the HIV virus causes AIDS; recently he has focused on people who have had the HIV virus for many years, but have not yet shown AIDS symptoms

2: British Journalist TIMOTHY GARTON ASH. George Kennan has compared GARTON ASH's powers of political observation to those of de Toqueville's. ASH's beat is Eastern Europe, and he has been on hand to chronicle the popular disavowal of Communism there (GARTON ASH'S classic account of the Prague Uprising in 1986 is "The Magic Lantern"). His most recent book concerns the German Re-Unification, and what Germany's role will be in the new Europe: "In Europe's Name: Germany & the Divided Continent" (Random House).

A remembrance of writer JOHN PRESTON who died of AIDS. We play an excerpt from a 1992 interview.