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In 1941, a group of young women in Northern Virginia formed a book club to pass the time while their husbands got started on their careers. More than 60 years later, the six surviving members are still reading, and still meeting. Howard Berkes reports for All Things Considered.

Actor Christopher Reeve. A 1995 horseback riding accident left him paralyzed from the neck down. Recently, with intensive physical therapy, Reeve announced that he has regained motion and feeling in his fingers and in other parts of his body. This is incredible news to scientists, who assumed he would never move again. Reeve was totally paralyzed for five years. Then, one morning two years ago, he found he could move one finger. Reeve is still dependent on a wheelchair and respirator. He's just written a book, Nothing Is Impossible: Reflections on a New Life. His other book is Still Me. Reeve is most famous for starring in the Superman film series (I, II, III and IV).

NPR's Sylvia Poggioli reports from the Calabria region of Italy -- home of the 'Ndrangheta, the most secretive and elusive of the Italian Mafias. A new CD collection of generations-old songs glorifying a culture of violence and vendetta is a best-seller in Europe. Hear full-length cuts from the CD, and get English translations of the lyrics. (9:00) La Musica Della Mafia, Il Canto di Malavita is available on Pias America, Catalogue# PIASA 8.

NPR's Joe Palca reports on the winners of this year's Nobel Prize for Chemistry. John Fenn of the United States, Koichi Tanaka of Japan and Kurt Wuethrich of Switzerland won the prize for developing tools to analyze and study important biological molecules called proteins.

Actor Joe Pantoliano plays Ralph Cifaretto on the HBO series The Sopranos. He has appeared in more than 60 films, including Memento, The Matrix and The Fugitive. He has a new memoir called Who's Sorry Now: The True Story of a Stand-Up Guy (E. P. Dutton). Pantoliano talks about growing up in Hoboken, N.J., and his acting career.

A new book sheds light on one of the discoverers of the structure of DNA in the early '50s. Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA highlights the contributions of a chemist whose work went largely unheralded for decades. Howard Berkes talks with author Brenda Maddox. NPR Online has the interview in its entirety.

Now on her fourth decade at the top of the country music scene, Dolly Parton recently joined Morning Edition host Bob Edwards in the NPR studios to talk about her childhood, her long, lucrative career and her latest CD, Halos & Horns. Listen to Parton's convincing take on one of rock 'n' roll's sacred cows, Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven."

Since they were first noticed by European explorers in the 1700s, totem poles may have been misunderstood as frightening statues worshipped as gods. But some say early totem poles were actually billboards for powerful native families, announcing the privileges they enjoyed. NPR's Robert Smith traces the history of totem poles for the Present at the Creation series.

California's record $35-billion budget deficit is anything but a game, but a Sacramento Bee columnist has made it one. Daniel Weintraub challenged his readers to study where the money goes, and then plug their proposed spending cuts and tax increases into an online budget game. NPR's Andy Bowers reports on some of the novel solutions players came up with.

Phil Patton, author of Bug: The Strange Mutations of the World's Most Famous Automobile. It's a cultural history of the Volkswagen Beetle, the most produced and best-known car of all time. Patton writes for The New York Times, Esquire, Wired and ID. He also wrote Dreamland: Travels inside the Secret World of Roswell and Area 51.