Literary Figures

Allison Pearson follows up her 2002 best-seller, I Don't Know How She Does It, with I Think I Love You, a novel about a teenage girl's obsession with teen star David Cassidy. The book wasn't hard for Pearson to write. When she was growing up, she was madly in love with Cassidy too.

Debut author Siobhan Fallon writes about the lives of soldiers and their families in her new short story collection, You Know When the Men Are Gone. Families, she says, take the strangeness of deployment and learn how to create a new normal.

100 years after his death, Mark Twain's autobiography was published the way Twain himself wished. Fresh Air's David Bianculli talks with Robert Hirst, of the Mark Twain Project, about editing and publishing Twain's work.

Writer David Rakoff's glass is never half full. In Half Empty, his latest essay collection, Rakoff explains the powers of pessimistic thought as he analyzes topics such as a pornography trade fair, his neurotic childhood and his recent cancer diagnosis.

The Liar's Club, Mary Karr's memoir about her hardscrabble childhood in Texas, was named one of the best books of 1995. In her new book, Lit, Karr details her early adult years and her struggles with alcohol, depression and motherhood.

The Mad Ones is the tale of real-life gangsters Larry, Albert "Kid Blast" and "Crazy" Joe Gallo — a Mafia clan that inspired Bob Dylan's "Joey" and were a major inspiration for The Godfather.

In his new book, Secret Identity: The Fetish Art Of Superman's Co-creator Joe Shuster, Craig Yoe explores the risque art of the man behind Superman.

Curtis Sittenfeld's new novel American Wife is about a kind, bookish, young woman who marries a wealthy charismatic young man who eventually becomes president. It's based on the life of Laura Bush. One reviewer calls it "a compassionate, illuminating, and beautifully rendered portrait."

When Bob Morris' widowed father decided to start dating again — at the age of 80 — guess who found himself sorting through the personals? In Assisted Loving, Morris chronicles the search for Dad's new Ms. Right — and his own misadventures in the romantic jungle that is Manhattan's gay ghetto.

In his new biography, Kirby: King of Comics, TV and comics writer Mark Evanier details the life and career of noted comic artist Jack Kirby, the co-creator of the Marvel Comics characters the Fantastic Four, the Incredible Hulk and X-Men.