With his book, "Hunting Mr. Heartbreak: A Discovery of America," Jonathan Raban wanted to see if, in the 20th century, a man could have a new life in America. Raban traveled to New York City, to the deep south in Alabama, to Seattle and finally to the Florida Keys.

His total love for the theatre began when Alan Ayckbourn worked backstage, and then worked the lights. He eventually began writing plays. To date, he has written 47 of them. Ayckbourn admits that his plays may be dark but he explained that he tries to add some humor into them, too. When writing a play, and without any notes, Ayckbourn said, he'll take four or five days to write out an entire play on a word processor.

English poet

Ninety five miles outside of London, Ronald Blythe has interviewed residents of the village of Akenfield for his next book, "Akenfield: A Portrait of an English Village." Blythe said what surprised him most of all was that newspapers and TV didn't have much effect on this little village. Blythe also learned that the village people would take part in political conversations with one another but they'd never let on as to which political party they were apart of.

Author of Mother Knows Best

The Irish theater actor discusses his performance as George Bernard Shaw in the one-man show, My Astonishing Life, at the St. Nicholas theater. This program also includes two excerpts from a 1937 BBC recording of Shaw.