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In 1951, Henrietta Lacks died after a long battle with cervical cancer. Doctors cultured her cells without permission from her family. The story of those cells — known as HeLa cells, in Lacks' honor — and of the medical advances that came from them, is told in Rebecca Skloot's book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.

Essayist Jake Halpern may be a 33-year-old man with a wife, kids and a job at Yale, but that doesn't mean he's no fun and games. When it comes to zombies, Halpern knows you can't take the living dead lightly — and that's why he's endorsing the ultimate zombie survival guide.

None of the characters in Fun with Problems, the latest collection from National Book Award-winning author Robert Stone, make it through their story unscathed.

Before either of them were famous, Patti Smith shared a romance and a deep friendship with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. Critic Michael Schaub says her new memoir, Just Kids, is a gift to anyone who has ever been touched by their art.

Award-winning reporter and MSNBC blogger Bob Sullivan has been covering issues of online fraud and privacy on the internet for over 12 years. His new book is Stop Getting Ripped Off, a guide to sensible consumption. He shares tips with Terry Gross on how to avoid getting scammed by car salesmen and credit card companies alike.

Science writer Shankar Vedantam says we often function on autopilot — without even knowing it. His new book, The Hidden Brain, explores how unconscious biases color our decisions even when we think we are acting rationally.

Louise Erdrich's Shadow Tag follows the disintegration of a marriage beset by betrayal and manipulation. Reviewer Heller McAlpin says Erdrich's novel raises "issues about art, privacy and identity."

In This Book Is Overdue — a passionately delivered profile of a profession in the midst of transition — Marilyn Johnson argues that today's librarians are more likely to be tattoo-toting cyber-missionaries than bespectacled old ladies shushing you in the stacks.

Novelist and playwright Dan Fante writes about alcoholism, drug addiction and failed attempts at literary success — all of which he has experienced himself. He discusses his novel, 86'd, battling his own emotional demons, and the process of reliving his past on paper.

Linguist Geoff Nunberg doesn't enjoy everything about the English language. There are phrases that get on his nerves and words that he prefers not to use. And Nunberg says he's not the first person to have linguistic pet peeves — nor will he be the last.