In Mark Barr’s engrossing historical novel "Watershed", personal and social changes lead to tension in a rural Tennessee town where a post-Depression federal dam project brings work, strangers, and electricity to the region. Claire is... Read More

Defining marriage and adultery is tricky, and it was even trickier in the 1800s. In the heady but colorful "Unfaithful", Carol Faulkner gives the history of American marriage reformers. These rebels and thinkers, along with some... Read More

The short, potent essays of Margaret Renkl’s Late Migrations: A Natural History of Love and Loss are objects as worthy of marvel and study as the birds and other creatures they observe. Linked stories concentrate on Renkl’s family,... Read More

Amy Weinland Daughters’s novel "You Cannot Mess This Up" explores an irresistible time travel premise: What if you could go back in time and meet your family as an outsider and hear what the adults in your life had to say about you as... Read More

"to be to is to was" is an anti-establishment collection of stories that goes from real to surreal, from Middle America to space rock operas, with its outrageous characters. Stephen C. Bird’s collection of short stories and vignettes... Read More

One thing is for sure, Mickey Hess has done his homework for "A Guest in the House of Hip-Hop", in which he records trying to be a good ambassador as he amplifies black voices and scholarship. The title draws upon the work of rapper Lord... Read More

Michael A. Messner’s "Guys Like Me" profiles a veteran from each of the five most recent American wars, documenting the experiences that led them to activism and advocacy for peace. Messner, the Vietnam-protesting grandson of a World... Read More

Melanie Hobson’s "Summer Cannibals" is a vibrant, vicious family portrait in which three adult daughters come home. The family matriarch, Margaret, has summoned everyone to rally around her very pregnant daughter, Pippa. The girls’... Read More