Uruguayan novelist Mario Levrero's Empty Words, his first to be translated into English, documents the quest of a writer who decides to improve his handwriting in order to conquer his personal problems. This plan goes awry, yet what emerges is charming, hilarious and often insightful. Much like Flaubert's Parrot by Julian Barnes, Empty Words is a book about writing itself and the frustrations of the creative process. Even when the narrator tries to focus on the task at hand, he inadvertently begins to document his neuroses and petty complaints. Levrero's prose is often poetic and slightly winking throughout; he knows that his hero is a bit ridiculous but likes him regardless. (And translator Annie McDermott has done an impeccable job adapting him.)

Levrero seemed to chafe at being placed in any canon of Latin American literature, and he shares the tendency of Borges and Lispector to reach epiphany through roundabouts and the gleeful embrace of the strange. It's only when the narrator writes about his weird dreams and feelings that he can actually move on from what bothers him. Empty Words does not suggest that there's an easy solution to unhappiness. But there is at least the possibility of serenity, and the sheer power that comes from creation, from putting words onto the page. Hopefully this isn't the first and last of Levrero's works to be translated. --C.M. Crockford, freelance reviewer

Tara Beckley, a senior at Maine's Hammel College, has one simple assignment: drive a visiting professor to a conference dinner. But Professor Oltamu insists on stopping along the way for them to step out and for him to take her picture. Before they can get back in the car, a van rams into them, killing Oltamu and flinging Tara into the cold river.

She wakes in a hospital room with her sister, Shannon, telling her mom and Mom's boyfriend that they should never give up on her. Who and what is Shannon talking about? Tara tries to communicate, with words, fingers, a blink--anything--but can't. She has locked-in syndrome--she can process stimuli but can't express herself to the outside world. If she can't demonstrate that her brain is alive, she might be taken off life support.

And someone else might end her life in a less merciful way. Oltamu's death was no accident, and Tara is a witness. If she starts communicating what she knows, an assassin would make sure she's silenced forever.

In If She Wakes, Michael Koryta (Rise the Dark) gives readers not one or two but four formidable female leads. Besides Tara, who fights for her life with every muscle twitch, there's Shannon, Tara's fierce defender; Abby, an insurance investigator trying to overcome her own trauma while looking into Oltamu's death; and Boone, also on the case but with a mysterious agenda. Koryta writes them with confidence, and each is someone to be reckoned with. As is the assassin, who's connected to characters in a previous Koryta thriller, which should delight fans. --Elyse Dinh-McCrillis, blogger at Pop Culture Nerd

Jane is rising from the ashes following a year of medicated mourning for her brilliant daughter, Mary. Her husband has become distant and absent; her remaining daughter, Betsy, the "average" one, is combative and angry. Jane is determined to regain her image as a perfect O.C. wife.

As Jane narrates her "coming out" plan in the days before Betsy's graduation and a celebration of life in Mary's honor, it becomes apparent the details of Jane's "complicated grief" diagnosis have been meticulously researched, down to her fascination with death statistics ("Cows kill twenty people a year in the U.S., which seems like a low number considering what we do to those poor creatures.").

In The Favorite Daughter, Kaira Rouda (Best Day Ever) provides a front-row seat to the riveting unraveling of an unhinged narcissist who will do anything to regain a picture-perfect image. Through the conversational first-person narrative, Jane slowly reveals her true self and how far she will go to put her life right, including more than a little revenge and destruction.

Rouda's portrayal of Jane is fabulously compelling and darkly hilarious, detailing her self-obsession and conceit. (Jane re-watches news interviews from when Mary went missing, happy with how her makeup looked and proud "all of [her] acting experience shined through.") This amplifies the discomfort of witnessing Jane coming unwound, but it's impossible to look away from the wreckage. The resolution is satisfying, but the ride is so diabolically twisted and entertaining that readers will be sorry when it comes to a stop. --Lauren O'Brien of Malcolm Avenue Review

Actress Kate Mulgrew (Star Trek Voyager, Orange Is the New Black) follows up her candid and thoughtful 2015 memoir, Born with Teeth, with an equally forthright and emotionally raw tale of caring for her parents at the end of their lives.

When her father is diagnosed with stage-four cancer that has spread from his lungs to brain stem, liver and kidneys, Mulgrew's return visit to her home state of Iowa is extended indefinitely. Six years earlier, her mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease and continued living at home thanks to a full-time caregiver. How to Forget tenderly chronicles Mulgrew's decision to care for her parents over the last two years of their lives.

With crystal clarity and sharp insight, Mulgrew paints a complicated family portrait as rich and complex as families in Pat Conroy's epic novels. As an adult, Mulgrew sees her parents and siblings with a fresh perspective. She realizes that one of the unspoken tenets of her parents' relationship was "they should never be emotionally vulnerable to each other, that such exposure could only lead to trouble." Mulgrew also writes beautifully of the way families are often torn apart--rather than united--by loss. "We longed to reach out to one another, but at every turn this instinct was thwarted, tangled in a web of suspicion and resentment," she writes. "As much as we had loved one another in the fullness of life, we hated what we had become when that wholeness was eclipsed by loss." How to Forget is an unforgettable, tender and loving memoir of acceptance and loss. --Kevin Howell, independent reviewer and marketing consultant

Following five successful novels--including A Man Called Ove and Us Against You--Swedish author Fredrik Backman turns to nonfiction. It should come as no surprise that this collection of essays to his young son is splendidly entertaining. As Backman generously offers a peek into the wisdom he bestows on his progeny, readers will find all the humor, profound insight and compassion that make his fiction so irresistible.

Backman claims that parents "actually haven't got a clue what we're really doing--having kids is in many ways like trying to drive a bulldozer through a china shop. With broken legs. Wearing a back-to-front ski mask. While drunk." Yet, he still manages to fill the pages with a deep understanding of human nature, a savvy instinct about the world and an endearing moral compass. He wraps this complex astuteness in hilarious analogies, anecdotes and lessons: a plea for his son to love soccer, warnings about IKEA, repeated apologies, a recipe for hot dogs, a lecture about God. And tucked in between the essays are short, bonus gems, including "Notes to self," conversations and observations.

One needn't be a father--or even a parent--to treasure this collection. As with all of his previous work, Backman artfully crafts his words to touch each person both individually and universally. He tells his son, "They say that sooner or later, all men turn into their fathers. And I really hope that's not the case. I hope you become much better." If his son manages that feat, it will be quite an accomplishment. --Jen Forbus

The residents of rural Coosa County, Ala., could be forgiven for being leery of Reverend Willie Maxwell. After all, five people close to him, including two wives, died mysteriously--leaving life insurance policies in Maxwell's name. In her first book, Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee, journalist Casey Cep explores both the strange case of Maxwell's life and death, and how famous Alabama native Harper Lee came out of seclusion and shook off her demons to try to chronicle this story of crime and vigilantism.

Maxwell collected hundreds of thousands of dollars in insurance but, although he was investigated thoroughly, he was never charged with a crime. The entire county "knew who had committed them, they just did not know how, or how to stop him." So, after the death of Maxwell's adopted stepdaughter, Shirley, her uncle figured that he knew how to stop the man. Robert Burns shot and killed Maxwell in front of hundreds of mourners at her funeral.

Cep knits together race, superstition, law and politics to create a compelling narrative that leads up to Harper Lee's appearance in the third section of the book. Cep's candid and empathetic portrayal of a gifted author tortured by success, creatively blocked, yet who spent years researching this true-crime story, provides what may be the most comprehensive recounting of Lee's ultimately futile attempt to write a follow-up to To Kill a Mockingbird. With Furious Hours, readers will conclude, Cep has written the book that Lee herself wanted to write. --Cindy Pauldine, bookseller, the river's end bookstore, Oswego, N.Y.

Going for a walk, or even stepping out the door on two feet, is a fundamentally human activity. But over the last few centuries, much of humanity has gradually lost, or is losing, the access and ability to walk without impediment and without fear. In her first book, A Walking Life, journalist Antonia Malchik delves into the repercussions of a sedentary life and explores the benefits--social, political, physical and spiritual--of reclaiming walking as an essential practice. "We walk," she says, "to remind ourselves that we are free."

With chapter titles like "Stride," "March," "Quest," "Pace," "Meander" and more, Malchik explores the physical and psychological processes of walking and the ways bipedalism has shaped the human experience. She examines walking as migration, as public protest, as spiritual practice, and visits cities on every part of the pedestrian-friendly continuum. (Denver, despite its reputation as a walkable city, has a long way to go--but so do most American metropolises.) She argues convincingly that walking, and easy access to safe pedestrian paths, has a powerful impact on individual citizens and their communities. It is, she says, vital for physical health, mental sharpness and connection with both nature and fellow humans. Malchik also draws on her own experience, from brief sanity-saving walks with her young children to her family's larger story of emigration from Russia to Montana.

Thoroughly researched, insightful and engaging, A Walking Life will inspire readers to slip on their shoes, open the door and just go. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams

Eric Gorges describes the  television show he hosts, A Craftsman's Legacy, as "a celebration [of crafts], but it's also a demonstration, a lesson." In his book of the same name, co-written with author Jon Sternfeld (A Stone of Hope), that celebration and demonstration moves from the screen to the page, as Gorges documents the many lessons he's learned from various crafts and craftsmen (and women) across the country.

Each chapter of A Craftsman's Legacy is based on topics like focus, respect, individuality and sacrifice. Within these, Gorges explores the works of one or two master craftsmen, giving a short history of each craft (as varied as sword making, engraving, woodworking, stone carving and even jeans-making). This historical detail gives context to Gorges's argument that "a craftsman is simply a vessel for the craft--adding to it and shepherding it along across time and space," and allows him to explore the role of the craftsman in a century rife with new technology and automated processes.

"Crafts and craftsmanship can move us, help us feel alive, and restore our sense of humanity," argues Gorges. This point comes across clearly in nearly every interview, but also in Gorges's account of his own experience building a custom motorcycle business, which is woven throughout the book. Some of these stories may feel overly simplified or romanticized, but that's ultimately the appeal of handmade crafts: they seem deceptively simple, masking the skill, time, patience, knowledge, personality and energy they take to create. A Craftsman's Legacy gives tribute to that simplicity while celebrating each craft's distinct complexities. --Kerry McHugh, blogger at Entomology of a Bookworm

The Way Things Work Now author David Macaulay takes readers on a transatlantic voyage in this homage to designer William Francis Gibbs's Blue Riband-winning steamship, the SS United States.

As a child, Macaulay emigrated to the United States with his family. Macaulay, his mother and his siblings journeyed to their new home on the ocean liner Gibbs spent 30 years imagining, researching and refining. Crossing on Time tells the story of both the ship's evolution and the Macaulay family's move. Accompanied by his illustrations and engineering-style blueprint drawings, Macaulay takes the audience through a brief history of the steam engine and its effect on sea travel. He depicts models and offers visual representation of the scientific concepts he explains in the text. As he continues to images of the vessels and their construction, he incorporates humans and animals to offer perspective, emphasizing the enormity of not only the craft but also Gibbs's dream. 

Macaulay includes fascinating details about the United States, sure to engage future engineers and architects, such as Gibbs's concern for fire at sea: "The only wood he allowed belonged to a couple of grand pianos and a few chopping blocks in the galleys." Macaulay also injects charming humor that keeps the narrative animated and entertaining, such as when the family sees France from the boat: "This was our first trip to France.... It looked just like England, but with different flags." Maintaining the personal nature of the story, Macauley even includes the only two pictures of his family aboard the SS United States in the book's back matter.

A stunning book befitting its magnificent subject, Crossing on Time is a blue-ribbon read. --Jen Forbus, freelancer