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As a teenager, the scariest person in Jen Lancaster's life wasn't Freddie Krueger or Michael Myers, but Ronald Lancaster, her father — until the night they laughed themselves silly, courtesy of Jean Shepherd.

Best-selling writer George Pelecanos says his newest thriller, The Turnaround, is based on an incident that happened in his neighborhood when he was 15. At the heart of the book is the idea that people never outlive responsibility for what they do.

In the new collection Changing My Mind: Occasional Essays, author Zadie Smith explores her writing process and the people who have influenced her. Smith tells NPR she doesn't write every day, though she wishes she did — and that she used writing as a way to mourn her father.

Fulfilling the masculine dream of having arms like Goliath probably isn't worth the downside of steroid use. Vicarious satisfaction is probably better, as author Marc Acito discovers upon reading Gladiator, the autobiography of one-time American Gladiators star Dan Clark, known to television audiences as Nitro.

Page after page of terrible handwriting is reproduced in faithful facsimile — covering forthcoming gigs, favorite songs, prophecies of fame, janitorial wages and the firing of drummers.

Melissa Sweet's colorful, kid-friendly biography includes letters, family photos, illustrations, manuscripts and more from the man behind Charlotte's Web, Stuart Little and The Trumpet of the Swan.

Leonard Michaels' Sylvia, an account of a violent and tumultuous love affair, began as an autobiographical essay and then grew into a novel. Author Sarah Manguso writes that despite all of its particularities, the story could really be about anyone. What are some novels that you can relate to?

Can the mishaps of three seriously misguided Victorian gentlemen still provoke laughter? More than 120 years after its first edition, author Julia Stuart says Jerome K. Jerome's classic caper, Three Men in a Boat, is still a delightful read.

When cooking author Julie Powell is looking for a hit of adolescent intensity, she heads for Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy. Those books "suck me under and spit me out, feeling as drained and fulfilled as a hormone-crazed bookworm half my age," she says.

Love is a many splendored thing ... or is it? Author Eleanor Henderson, once admittedly infatuated with the writings of her teacher, Robert Cohen, insists that you must read The Varieties of Romantic Experience -- his collection of tumultuous tales of love and the struggles that lie therein.