With his first novel 'High Fidelity,' Nick Hornby famously tackled the music obsessive in ways that every record buyer could relate to. In his latest novel, 'Juliet, Naked,' Hornby covers another type of musical fanatic -- the reclusive, critically-acclaimed recording artist. The book's main character, Tucker Crowe, is a musician who inspires fans to camp outside his house and eventually comes out of hiding.

"I wanted him to be lured out about something he read about himself," Hornby tells Spinner. "Then I wanted it to be negative stuff, bad reviews. The first part of the thinking was about art and how we relate to it -- why it means different things to different people."

That statement is certainly true, as different things tend to spark musical obsessions in all of us, and in Hornby's case, he was looking at constructing Crowe in the vein of Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen and the Beatles. "I think they tend to be all of a certain type," he says about reclusive artists. "The more I got into the book and the character, the more I realized there were certain artists that were more oblique and elliptical and are more likely going to attract the obsessive people. And more likely to hide. "

Hornby himself is known for being an obsessive music junkie. In his brief conversation with Spinner, he spoke about Bon Iver, Those Darlins, Richard Hawley, Iron and Wine and Neko Case, but what he's currently obsessing about is none of the above. Instead, it's the collaborative piano-pop based project he's working on with Ben Folds.

"He sends me music and I send him words," he says. "I think it's coming out in the spring. We got a dozen songs together so far. There's no thematic coherence but it's been a lot of fun, because I know when my email clogs up in the morning, I know it's an MP3 from Ben Folds."

'Juliet, Naked' is out now via Riverhead Books.