Arthur Prescott is happily ensconced in his life in Barchester, England, teaching at the university, spending untold hours in the library working on his never-finished guidebook to Barchester Cathedral, and continuing his secret search for the Holy Grail. But the sudden arrival of Bethany Davis, an attractive young American who has been charged with digitizing the library's manuscripts, upends Arthur's world. Prepared to defend his beloved library against the onslaught of digital technology, Arthur is shocked to find that Bethany's passion for books--and the Grail--equals his own. The unlikely pair embark on a twofold quest: searching for the Grail and for the lost Book of Ewolda, which contains the story of the cathedral's patron saint. Charlie Lovett spins a fascinating literary and historical mystery in The Lost Book of the Grail.

Lovett (First Impressions) anchors his story in the present day, but deftly interweaves flashbacks from multiple historical eras--the night in 1941 when Nazi bombs hit the cathedral library; the origins of St. Ewolda's story in A.D. 560. Bethany's sunny optimism provides a nice foil for Arthur's crusty skepticism, and Lovett explores the nature of faith and doubt while unraveling the long history of the cathedral and its treasures. Supporting characters like Gwyneth the cathedral dean are a delight, and the ending, while tidy, is entirely satisfying. For bibliophiles, Grail enthusiasts and anyone who loves a good quest, Arthur's story is a rich, erudite and entertaining adventure. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams

Less a debut and more an arrival, this arresting first novel from Yoojin Grace Wuertz brings to life a South Korea poised on the brink of transformation and the young people caught up in its turbulence.

Childhood friends Namin and Jisun have always managed to ignore their differences, or at least pretended to. As students at Seoul National University in the fading days of the 1970s, though, their friendship may finally fail to survive their divergent paths. Jisun lives in a mansion and stands to inherit her father's wildly lucrative shipping business, but she rebels against her family's prestigious legacy by acting as a translator for American missionaries who secretly encourage factory workers to unionize.

Namin, her parents and her elder sister, Kyungmin, share a three-room house with no hot water or indoor plumbing in one of Seoul's poorest neighborhoods. Kyungmin works long hours in a factory, and their parents operate a dilapidated food cart to pay for Namin's education in hopes she will raise the family from poverty. All Namin wants is a gateway to the success she needs to care for her mentally handicapped brother, who lives with her grandparents. Though a mutual outsider status at the private girls' school Jisun and Namin both attended in childhood led to the pair bonding, their growing impatience with each other's differing views of the future damages their relationship.

Inspired by stories of her parents' college days in South Korea, Wuertz evokes a time of change in a country with which most Westerners aren't very familiar. Powerful and absorbing, Everything Belongs to Us introduces a new and compelling voice. --Jaclyn Fulwood, blogger at Infinite Reads

Buenos Aires after World War II is filled with émigrés who escaped the horrors of war and would like to forget their pasts. Death Going Down, María Angélica Bosco's (1917-2006) first novel, opens with German citizen and war bride Frida Eidinger found dead in the elevator of a building not her own. Her killer is one among a cast of suspicious characters motivated by past trauma and current jealousies: "This case is one of a passionate obsession and its resulting resentment and devastation."

Inspectors Ericourt and Blasi discover that Frida conducted secret evening trips to the apartment building where she died. Her husband was aware of her activities, and residents of that building have murky connections to her past. They include a Bulgarian photographer and his sister; a physician quick to dispense tranquilizers; a womanizing drunk; and an invalid with a dependent wife and rebellious daughter. There are plenty of possible clues and motives to consider, but Blasi slyly warns readers to be wary of red herrings. "I don't like clues. Their interpretation often leads us the wrong way." The suspects are caught in a web of evasions and fabrications before Ericourt and Blasi piece together the facts of the case and re-create the fateful night and reveal the murderer.

Death Going Down won the inaugural Emecé Novel Award in 1954, initiated to recognize new Argentinean authors. This is a fine example of translated fiction newly brought to the attention of English-speaking readers. --Cindy Pauldine, bookseller, the river's end bookstore, Oswego, N.Y.

When Judy Garland married her third husband, Sid Luft, in 1952, he was a low-level agent making deals with poverty row studios like Monogram Pictures, and she was a star without a studio. "She had a track record six miles long of hysteria, attempted suicide, and walking off of movie sets," writes Luft, who became her agent and began repairing her reputation by setting up cross-country concert dates.

During their 13-year marriage, Garland ricocheted between triumphs (two children and two Oscar nominations) and turmoil (pill addiction, numerous hospitalizations and rehab stints). As the producer of Garland's comeback film, 1954's A Star Is Born, Luft offers an insightful look at its making (both Cary Grant and Frank Sinatra wanted to co-star) and unmaking (the greedy studio cut the three-hour film to 100 minutes to gain more daily showings and the movie sunk).

Luft worked on Judy and I for decades, but only completed the chronology up to 1960 before his 2005 death. Randy L. Schmidt (Little Girl Blue: The Life of Karen Carpenter) shaped the manuscript, sorted through a mountain of research and completed this compelling memoir. It now ends with Garland's overdose death in 1969 at the age of 47. Luft is a controversial figure to many Garland fans. Was he a savior or exploiter? His warts-and-all approach toward Garland ("She was married to the drugs before she met me and she never really got divorced") is equally critical of his younger self. Judy & I is a gossip-lover's delight, but it's also heartfelt, tough and sad. --Kevin Howell, independent reviewer and marketing consultant

Tom Clavin (The DiMaggios) opens Dodge City: Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson and the Wickedest Town in the American West with Masterson stepping off the train in Dodge City in Kansas, expecting trouble. The scene is tense; Clavin deliberately evokes the images of lawlessness and violence associated with the city's name.

The uneasy relationship between that violence and the creation of a system of frontier justice unfolds here. Clavin builds on the premise that most of the books and films about Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, Doc Holiday and Dodge City are fiction, "including the ones published as nonfiction." He sets up popular images, and then carefully dissects them in search of a measure of historic truth. (Not an easy task--legend and misinformation appeared almost immediately, thanks to the popular press, dime novels and inconsistencies in the accounts of the characters involved.) He follows his main characters, their relatives and an enormous cast of cowboys, outlaws and lawmen through their travels in and out of Dodge City. More importantly, he sets "the wickedest town in the West" in its historical context of buffalo hunting, cattle drives, westward expansion of the railroads and a national sense of manifest destiny.

The result is a colorful and careful depiction of a city in transition. As Clavin presents it, Dodge City was violent, lawless and complex. The dividing line between outlaw and lawman was fluid. And justice was a moving target. --Pamela Toler, blogging at History in the Margins

In the 1970s, TV's Steve Austin was the stuff of kids' dreams. Rebuilt after a horrific accident, the Six Million Dollar Man had a bionic eye, could run alongside a car and leap onto tall buildings. Thanks to real-world bioengineering, the Steve Austin model has been left in the dust. Today we can regenerate tissue to grow new body parts, see using our ears, stave off degenerative diseases with enhanced muscle growth, and medically augment intuition.

It may still sound like television fantasy, but journalist Adam Piore's The Body Builders offers a behind-the-scenes peek into the astounding realm of human engineering. Steeped in heady principles, Piore uses examples of tragedy and indomitable human resilience to give life and depth to the subject. The science is complex, but his conversational style is captivating whether or not one knows how big a container you'd need to hold 2.4 million nucleotides.

Neither scientists nor Piore believe the story stops here. Our ever-advancing ability to hack bodies and minds to make "better" versions of ourselves has implications far beyond fixing broken or missing parts. Will the concepts be used for good? Who decides what that is? If we have the ability to engineer superhuman soldiers who are impervious to pain, should we?

The Body Builders raises these and many other difficult questions. The answers are unknown, but there is no denying Piore has crafted a fascinating foundation for discussion, while highlighting the dedication of our scientists and the resilience of the human spirit. --Lauren O'Brien of Malcolm Avenue Review

In Always by My Side, Edward Grinnan--editor-in-chief of Guideposts, a magazine filled with affirming, life-changing stories of faith--details the years he has shared with a host of dogs that have enriched his complicated life. Grinnan, a recovering addict, believes God sent dogs to guide his way "from the darkness that once threatened to swallow" him.

The narrative, which is heartfelt and candid, centers on Millie--a much-loved and highly sensitive golden retriever--who is riddled with foibles, yet demonstrates courage, even through illness. Along the way of telling her story, Grinnan recounts his relationships with other unforgettable dogs, often in times of adversity: Sparky, an "unruly, errant beagle"--Grinnan's sister's dog--offered him companionship during an infirm childhood in Detroit; Pierre was a smart poodle that comforted him after his older brother, a 12-year-old with Down syndrome, mysteriously drowned in a Michigan lake; Sally Browne--an egotistical yet sweet cocker spaniel--demonstrated pure compassion, especially for the homeless; Marty, an enormous, "crazed" Labrador, crashed a Central Park wedding; and Rudy, "a big burly cocker spaniel," shared in Grinnan's quest for sobriety and served as a "divinely dispatched matchmaker" in his union with wife Julee.

"Sometimes God shouts, sometimes he whispers, and sometimes he sends a woof," Grinnan (The Promise of Hope) states, as his great affection and gratitude for dogs, especially Millie, teaches him personal and universal lessons about love, life and letting go. --Kathleen Gerard, blogger at Reading Between the Lines

Film buffs and history aficionados will be delighted and riveted by Glenn Frankel's insightful and intimate look at the making of the classic 1952 western High Noon. Most remember the unconventional and left-leaning western as the film that won Gary Cooper a Best Actor Academy Award. Few remember that it was made at the height of the Red Scare in Hollywood, when hundreds of studio employees were blacklisted out of jobs because of their liberal politics. Carl Foreman's award-winning screenplay was an allegory about American foreign policy during the Korean War and a swipe at the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) and Senator Joseph McCarthy.

Frankel (The Searchers) rightfully focuses on Foreman as the hero behind High Noon. He wrote the script after his 1947 appearance before HUAC, where he refused to name suspected Communists. Foreman was labeled an uncooperative witness and, after the release of his film, was blacklisted from films until 1961. His presence on High Noon strained relationships with its producer (Stanley Kramer) and director (Fred Zinnemann). It also made the film a target of some of the loudest right-wing hawks in Hollywood--like columnist Hedda Hopper and actor John Wayne.

Frankel's saga presents a gripping and coherent picture of the corrupt politics, paranoia and fear mongering that drove Hollywood studio heads to capitulate to anti-Communist witch-hunters. High Noon is an important and compelling history of a great film made during one of the U.S.'s worst periods. --Kevin Howell, independent reviewer and marketing consultant

In Deep in the Woods, British illustrator Christopher Corr, whose distinctive style has graced A Year Full of Stories and other picture books, brings his luminous artwork to a retelling of a familiar Russian folk tale. "Deep in the woods was a little wooden house. It was painted bright white, with nine neat windows and a red front door." Sadly, this "perfect little home" stands empty, until a mouse passes by one day and decides it's the right place for him to set up housekeeping. Next, a frog hops by and gets the same idea. The mouse welcomes him warmly. And then a rabbit shows up, followed by a beaver, a fox, a rooster and so on. All--predator and prey alike--settle in, adding their homey touches and singing the night away. But when a bear comes along and asks if there's room for him, the music and dancing screech to a halt. "No," the animals answer unhappily, "There isn't room for a big bear in this little wooden house!" Unswayed, the bear tries every means of access: the windows, the door and, finally, the roof. "The little wooden house begins to tremble... Crrrreeaaak!" And "Crrumph!" goes the house. Disaster! Are the animals destined to become homeless again? Not while the strong and caring bear is around!

Thick, rich paper absorbs Corr's brilliant neon colors, and the textured cover adds to the overall sensual experience of this radiant picture book. The classic folk tale's theme of inclusiveness and resourcefulness is as fresh today as it has been for generations of children. --Emilie Coulter, freelance writer and editor

Pakistani American sixth grader Amina Khokar and her best friend Soojin Park were always "the only kids in elementary school who had names that everyone stumbled over." But now Korean-born Soojin, whose family is about to gain U.S. citizenship, wants to change her name to something more American, like Jessica or Melanie. She's also warming up to a popular white girl named Emily who has never been friendly to Amina and Soojin. Soojin seems to be moving into adolescence faster than Amina can keep up, and their comfortable friendship is teetering. "[S]omething about Soojin wanting to drop her name makes me worry that I might be next," Amina says. Meanwhile, Amina's shyness prevents her from auditioning for a school solo even though she longs to sing; her older brother, Mustafa, is pushing back against the family's Muslim traditions; and their conservative uncle is coming for a three-month visit, during which their parents expect them to "be perfect." Their close-knit family is on edge as their Muslim customs bump up against contemporary Milwaukee culture. When a terrible act of vandalism against their mosque throws her community into fearful turmoil, Amina must decide if she's brave and open-minded enough to use her voice to make a difference.

Amina's Voice is the first title in Salaam Reads, Simon & Schuster's imprint dedicated to publishing books that feature Muslim characters and stories. Hena Khan (It's Ramadan, Curious George) writes a gentle coming-of-age story universal in theme and original in context, and appealing to any reader who has just wanted to slow the world down. --Emilie Coulter, freelance writer and editor