In The High Mountains of Portugal, Booker Prize winner Yann Martel (Life of Pi, Beatrice and Virgil) uses myth and fantastical elements to meditate on the relationships among death, faith and belonging in three interconnected stories. The first piece, titled "Homeless," takes place in 1904 and tells the story of Tomás, a young man shattered by the simultaneous loss of his lover, five-year-old son and father. He walks backwards, "his back to God," to protest his losses, and becomes obsessed with a mysterious crucifix described in a stolen 17th-century diary before undertaking a comical but emotionally charged journey to the mountains of Portugal to seek it.

In "Homeward," an old woman in 1938, bearing the body of her recently deceased husband in a suitcase, seeks closure by asking pathologist Eusebio Lozora to conduct an autopsy and assess how her husband lived. Reminiscent of the human-animal tale from Life of Pi, "Home" describes the 1981 journey of Canadian Senator Peter Tovy, who, after his wife's death, adopts a chimpanzee named Odo. His search for a new life in the mountains of Portugal reveals an unexpected thread that connects him to the historical past of "Homeless" and "Homeward."

With ingenious twists and turns, Martel's storytelling achieves his noble intentions: "It is together, in an act of imaginary consummation, that the story is born. This act wholly involves us, as any marriage would, and just as no marriage is exactly the same as another, so each of us interprets a story differently, feels for it differently." --Nancy Powell, freelance writer and technical consultant

Paul Goldberg's debut novel, The Yid, is a wildly imaginative account of Josef Stalin's death that combines elements of drama, thriller and farce into an energetic alternate history of the dictator's demise.

In the depths of a Moscow winter in February 1953, all but a few of the Soviet Union's some two million Jews are unaware that a plan for mass deportations and executions will soon be set into motion. But retired Yiddish theater actor Solomon Levinson, physician Aleksandr Kogan and Yiddish-speaking African American engineer Friederich Lewis, who's fled the racism of his native Omaha for the Soviet Promised Land, are about to improvise a desperate scheme to thwart Stalin's plan to launch "a Kristallnacht times ten, or times a hundred!" 

These unlikely co-conspirators prove remarkably adept at the swift, savage, but balletic, violence necessary to work their way methodically (if, on occasion, accidentally) toward Stalin's dacha. But for all their single-minded determination to assassinate the Soviet leader, Levinson, Kogan and Lewis can't help but reflect on their shared disillusionment with life under the Communist regime.

Goldberg, who immigrated to the United States from the Soviet Union at age 14 in 1973, draws on his own family members and their stories to give the novel an air of verisimilitude, despite its fantastical elements. The death of Josef Stalin on March 5, 1953, four days after he suffered an apparent stroke, was much more prosaic than the account Paul Goldberg has created in this vivid novel. The Yid offers an opportunity to contemplate what one tyrant's end might have been like if justice ever truly were poetic. --Harvey Freedenberg, attorney and freelance reviewer

Charlie Goldwyn, a widowed litigation attorney, narrates Christina Alger's novel This Was Not the Plan. Unable to cope since the death of his wife, Charlie buries himself in work. He leaves the raising of his five-year-old son, Caleb, to his "laid-back hippie of a sister," Zadie, who is a steadying force for her brother and quirky Caleb, who likes to dress in girls' clothing.

"There are things in life that are more important than work," one of the bosses tells Charlie, who is up for partner at his high-powered Manhattan law firm. Overworked and overtired, Charlie is roped into attending an office cocktail party, where he drinks too much and goes off on a loose-tongued tirade about his job and the back-breaking sacrifices he's made for the firm--only to have the incident captured on video by a competitive coworker. The video goes viral, and Charlie is fired. Suddenly he's forced to navigate the world as a stay-at-home-dad and try to reconnect with his son, while fighting to get his job back. But is returning to the firm what's best for Charlie--and for Caleb?

As Charlie plots his next move, he struggles with grief and the new realities of his life, including his own parental and social inadequacies and the strained relationship he's endured with his own father. Alger (The Darlings) piles problems on her sympathetic protagonist in a lively, entertaining way, while presenting a cast of appealing characters faced with the stresses and challenges of contemporary parenting. --Kathleen Gerard, blogger at Reading Between the Lines

Although reincarnation is a central tenet of several Asian religions, the idea remains the stuff of myth in mainstream Western culture. In The Forgetting Time, first-time novelist Sharon Guskin looks at choices, regret and second chances in the powerful story of a little boy who remembers life as someone else and the adults who struggle to help him find peace.

After a brief fling while on vacation, Janie turns up pregnant. She keeps the baby and considers little Noah a precious gift. However, Noah grows into a difficult, baffling child. He tells stories about a grandfather he doesn't have, a lake house where they've never been. He cries and begs to go home when they're already there. Janie takes Noah to therapist after therapist, with results ranging from no answers to a diagnosis of early-onset schizophrenia. Desperate for an explanation, Janie turns to the Internet. Her research takes a surprising direction, leading her to an authority on the topic of past-life memories.

Meanwhile, thousands of miles away, a mother has spent years grieving her missing child while a killer walks free.

Whether or not the reader believes in life after death, Guskin offers an intimate and suspenseful portrait of a family in crisis. Intercut with excerpted case studies from actual past-life researcher Dr. Jim Tucker's Life Before Life, Guskin's drama is honest, even comforting, but never gimmicky. She challenges readers to consider that human consciousness may be more complicated and far-reaching than science or Western religion believe. --Jaclyn Fulwood, blogger at Infinite Reads

From his home in a hillside Peloponnesian village, John Spurling (The Ten Thousand Things) charmingly retells some of Western literature's best-known stories. He balances careful attention to the originals with his own humorous voice, honoring well-loved classics with a fresh eye.

Each section focuses on a hero: Perseus, Herakles, Apollo, Theseus and the ill-fated Agamemnon. Chapters begin and end with Spurling's own Arcadian vista, on the Gulf of Argos, which inspires his imagination. Through these lenses, Arcadian Nights (re)familiarizes readers with the curse on the House of Atreus, the Twelve Labors and the complexly intertwining genealogies of mortals and immortals in a storied era somewhere between history and myth. Spurling notes commonalities with other cultures' and religions' fables, and infuses the established legends with added detail: imagined dialogue lends well-known characters extra personality, and Herakles gets a perfectly apt new piece of apparel. The occasional modernization enlivens the tales, as when the newly dead line up to cross the River Styx into Hades--it "was a little like going through security in an airport today"--but this is no clumsy 21st-century resetting of Aeschylus. Rather, Spurling's gentle, clever wit complements the originals' themes of heroism and romance, and their reminders of the importance of hospitality, humility and memory.

Spurling's passion and enthusiasm and the best of Greek myth shine through this new version, equally appropriate to introduce new readers or reinvigorate the appetite of those who already honor such names as Zeus, Achilles, Athena, Poseidon and more. --Julia Jenkins, librarian and blogger at pagesofjulia

Courtland Gentry, aka the Gray Man, returns in Mark Greaney's Back Blast, the fifth book in the thriller series featuring the notorious CIA paramilitary officer turned freelance assassin. For five years, Gentry has evaded the Agency's shoot-on-sight order against him, while having no idea what he did to deserve it. Certain that he performed his missions perfectly, he returns from Europe to the U.S. to confront his opponents--the very people who made him who he is.

On the streets of Washington, D.C., a battle ensues between the lone Gray Man and his former colleagues--including his team leader and the best-trained operatives in Gentry's former division. As if that isn't enough trouble, a band of rogue foreign agents is also gunning for Gentry. He doesn't expect to survive the fight; he just wants the truth. But the truth could destroy the CIA, and very powerful people are making sure it doesn't come out.

Greaney knows how to hit the ground running and keep the pace flying. Gentry is engaged in one action set piece after another, employing his various fighting skills against very bad guys. Much of the fun comes in wondering how the Gray Man will extricate himself from impossible situations and then seeing his ingenious solutions. Just call him MacGrayver. The banter between Gentry and his macho former team members is entertaining, too. Yes, Back Blast is over the top and involves top CIA suits who are disturbingly fluid in their morality, but who knows? Maybe it's more realistic than most readers might think. --Elyse Dinh-McCrillis, blogger at Pop Culture Nerd

Tom Lubbock was an art critic for the Independent and the father of an 18-month-old boy when he was diagnosed with brain cancer in 2008. In The Iceberg, his wife, Marion Coutts, a versatile and prolific artist and writer, recalls his final years. The resulting memoir is musing, lyrical, ambling and sometimes digressive. The range of emotions she expresses is startling and real.

Coutts begins with "a diagnosis that has the status of an event" as she introduces her husband and their son, Ev. Tom works with words and concepts, meticulously and thoughtfully constructing the writings that are his livelihood and passion. When he has a seizure, a tumor is discovered in the speech and language part of his brain: Tom and Marion must reinvent communication. They practice and make lists: of names of friends, of ideas for outings, of opposing word pairs (big/small, light/heavy). They play a game of yes/no questions when Tom has something to discuss.

The Iceberg neatly captures the events of diagnosis and death, with a stark attention to what comes in between, and little reference to the rest of life. Tom's medical conditions are described with varying levels of detail, as Coutts often has only a vague understanding of them. Her encounters with the British National Health Service are frequently frustrating. Her prose is layered, textured, dense with meaning and interjected with brief e-mails to loved ones about Tom's status along the way. As a consideration of art, life, death and love, the full impact of The Iceberg is deeply moving and intelligent, a worthy elegy. --Julia Jenkins, librarian and blogger at pagesofjulia

In The Black Presidency, Michael Eric Dyson offers a nuanced analysis of the politics of race in the U.S., particularly how they have shaped and been shaped by the two terms of Barack Obama. As Dyson writes in the introduction, the book is intended to explore "our racial limits and possibilities, our tortured past and our complicated present, our moral conflicts and aspirations, our cherished national myths, and our contradictory political behavior."

Using Obama's own words--from campaign speeches, press conferences and an interview granted specifically for this book--as well as many writings, comments and records from politicians, journalists and civil rights leaders, Dyson places Obama's presidency squarely in the context of history. He sheds light not only on what it takes to become the first black president of the United States, but also what it takes to be a black president in the United States, touching on everything from Obama's rhetoric to his "scolding" of black America to his relationship to the generations of black leaders that came before him.

Dyson, author of Come Hell or High Water: Hurricane Katrina and the Color of Disaster and a political analyst for MSNBC, endorsed Obama in 2007, but The Black Presidency is by no means a one-sided look at the president's two terms in office. Instead, the book doles out support as readily as it doles out criticisms, resulting in an insightful and interesting study of race and politics, and the very public convergence of the two during Barack Obama's stay in the White House. --Kerry McHugh, blogger at Entomology of a Bookworm

No location is out of reach for a good Navigator with the right map. In Heidi Heilig's debut fantasy, The Girl from Everywhere, 16-year-old Nix Song, the half-Chinese daughter of Captain Slate, has only known life aboard their time-traveling pirate ship, the Temptation. Brought on board as a baby after her mother's death in 1868 Honolulu, Nix has seen plenty of adventure, traveling via a secret sort of "Navigation" with her erratic, opium-addled father and a ragtag, bare-bones crew to places and times both real and fantastic. Their ultimate quest has always been the same: to find the right historical map to bring Slate back to 1868 Hawaii and save Nix's mother. The trouble is, no one is sure what will become of Nix if Slate is successful. Will she simply vanish from the Earth? And would her father care if she did? As Nix quietly plans to make her escape, the crew of the Temptation gets caught up in the political turmoil of the last days of imperial Hawaii, an intriguing time and place lushly described in vivid detail that will have readers feeling the tropical breezes.

This thrilling swashbuckler--steeped in history, myth and legend--finds a solid anchor in its colorful characters, from the charming Persian street thief Kashmir who is constantly flirting with Nix, to Captain Slate, the modern New Yorker. While the rules of time travel can be confusing at times, the story itself settles into a comfortable rhythm. Fascinating, thought-provoking and wonderfully imagined, The Girl from Everywhere will spark the adventurer inside every reader. --Kyla Paterno, former children's & YA book buyer