Terry Gross

Former mail order magnate J. Peterman. His text-heavy apparel catalogs spun stories of adventure, and earned him a place as a fictional character on the hit T-V series "Seinfeld." But his business failed, and now he's written an article in the current issue of "The Harvard Business Review" to tell what happened.

Writer Edmund Morris. His biography of former president Ronald Reagan, "Dutch," (Random House) has garnered a lot of controversy. Morris uses a fictional narrator to tell much of the story, taking unprecedented artistic liberties. This is the first biography authorized by a sitting president, and it took Morris fourteen years to finally complete the work. Morris, a South African by birth, is the author of "The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt," which won the Pulitzer Prize and the American Book Award. He is currently at work on a second volume of the Roosevelt biography.

Terry Gross calls Jimmy Carter to discuss his 75th birthday.