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The man behind Pink Flamingos and Cry-Baby hitchhiked from Baltimore to San Francisco and chronicles the experience in a new book, Carsick. He says as a hitchhiker, "Your job is to talk. Or have sex."

The Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist says the myth of the cowboy feels "hollow." The Last Kind Words Saloon is a spare and unsentimental story about two Western icons, Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday.

Jay Cantor is a hard author to nail down. He's written about topics as wide-ranging as Che Guevara and Krazy Kat. His latest work expands his range even more, fictionalizing the lives of four of Franz Kafka's friends and lovers. It's called Forgiving the Angel, and Cantor tells NPR's Lynn Neary it's a book born out of gratitude.

In 1979, Gary Shteyngart's family moved from Leningrad to Queens. Three decades later, he wrote a memoir about growing up in a Russian immigrant family in New York. Reviewer Meg Wolitzer says the book is full of rich, gratifying writing as well as pride, exuberance and sophisticated humor.

As part of Crosby, Stills & Nash, the British singer-songwriter helped define a West Coast sound. Here, he discusses the influence of Buddy Holly, The Everly Brothers and marijuana on his career, as well as his memoir, Wild Tales: A Rock & Roll Life.

In Scent And Subversion, Barbara Herman explains how, at the turn of the 20th century, most perfumes were still just one note, floral. Then along came a fragrance that changed everything. "With Chanel No. 5," Herman says, "Coco Chanel said, 'A woman needs to smell like a woman, and not a rose.'"

American Muslim author Haroon Moghul was bound and determined to go to his high school prom — and he wrote about it for the new essay collection, Salaam, Love: American Muslim Men on Love, Sex and Intimacy. Moghul tells NPR's Rachel Martin that he thought the experience might help him understand himself better.

Read an exclusive pre-publication excerpt of Landline, the new novel from Eleanor & Park author Rainbow Rowell. Love, heartache, sitcom success and a magic phone — did we mention the magic phone?

Entertainment Weekly reporter Anthony Breznican calls his debut novel a mix between Fight Club and The Breakfast Club.

William T. Vollmann's 2005 novel Europe Central was a masterpiece. His latest work, a collection of ghost stories entitled "Last Stories and Other Stories" is flabby and cliched.