Terry Gross

In the United States, an orphan disease is one that affects fewer than 200,000 patients. These conditions often involve chronic pain or fatigue, and can be controversial and difficult to diagnose. Yet they affect around 30 million Americans. Author Laurie Edwards is one such patient.

The CIA has morphed from a traditional espionage service concerned with stealing the secrets of foreign governments into an organization consumed with hunting down its enemies. New York Times journalist Mark Mazzetti chronicles this transformation in a new book, The Way of the Knife.

Handpicked by Walt Disney to be one of the original Mouseketeers, Annette Funicello was America's girl next door. She spoke to Fresh Air in 1994 about Mickey Mouse ears and why she went public with her multiple sclerosis diagnosis. She died Monday at age 70 from complications of the disease.

The musician, songwriter, composer and producer has made a name for himself by playing with the like of Amanda Palmer. For his latest album, however, he found himself departing from a rock sound as he began writing his own orchestral arrangements.

As Deputy Director of President George W. Bush's Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, Kuo hoped to be a force inside the White House advocating for the poor. He left after two years, disillusioned and believing he had been used solely to recruit evangelical voters. Kuo, who died Friday at 44, talked to Fresh Air in 2006.

Fresh Air remembers the film critic and bon vivant Roger Ebert, who died Thursday, with a roundup of interviews from our archive -- one with Ebert alone, one with him and his late partner Gene Siskel, and two in which Ebert interviews iconic directors. Plus, critic-at-large John Powers discusses Ebert's 2011 memoir Life Itself.

As a Mormon missionary, Ryan McIlvain spent two years ringing strangers' doorbells, even as he experienced doubts about his own faith. He left the church in his mid-20s. McIlvain's debut novel, Elders, tells the story of two young Mormons carrying out their missions.

"The view that drug use is a moral choice is pervasive, pernicious and wrong," writes David Sheff in Clean, a critical look at the nation's approach to drug treatment. Shelf argues that we should not wait for "rock bottom" -- that addiction should be treated promptly, just like any other disease.

Jerry Seinfeld looked that if you have bloodstains on your clothes, you have bigger problems than laundry. But Jolie Kerr helps with all the stains in a new book, My Boyfriend Barfed in My Handbag.

The writer's family was living in Egypt, in exile from Libya, when Matar's father, a prominent opponent of the Qaddafi regime, was kidnapped, taken back to Libya, and imprisoned. That was in March 1990, and it was the last time Matar saw his father. After the revolution in March 2012, Matar returned to look for his father or at least try to find out what became of him.