There was a literary fracas in the United States in 2014 when Patrick Modiano won the Nobel Prize. Many critics fumed, as they do annually, that Philip Roth had been usurped by an unknown and unworthy foreign author (never mind that Modiano is French, the academy Swedish). Subsequently, more of Modiano's books have been translated into English, enriching readers of that language, for whom The Black Notebook should cement Modiano's Nobel-worthiness.

Jean, upon reviewing the fastidious details he captured in his black notebook from the 1960s, reminisces about his lost love, Dannie, and a circle of Moroccans he came to know through her. Dannie is mysterious and abrupt, charming and sweet, her past obscure, and, for Jean, what is left of her are fragmentary memories, layered upon each other like the successive generations of streets and buildings that make up modern Paris. Theirs is a narrative equally constructed in the present as it is true to the past, with a sense of memory's fragility.

Of Dannie's opacity and possible criminality, Jean claims, "None of this was important. The only thing that mattered was that we were strolling along the quays without asking anyone's permission and without leaving anything behind. And we could just as easily cross over the Seine and lose ourselves in other neighborhoods, and even leave Paris for other cities and another life." But it must matter, for having lost her, Jean can only find her, at least metaphorically, by understanding who they both were. --Evan M. Anderson, collection development librarian, Kirkendall Public Library, Ankeny, Iowa.

Chris Stewart (Seven Miracles that Saved America), U.S. Congressman from Utah, turns to historical fiction with Winter Sky, a story set during the bleak, cold days of December 1944.

The Red Army is advancing, the Nazis are withdrawing and the people of Poland are trapped between two enemies. A few brave Polish Resistance fighters, known as "the Devil's Rebels," have been fighting the Nazis, but they are forced to retreat from the Soviet surge. One young fighter winds up in the (fictional) village of Gorndask, with no memory of how he came to be injured, or even of his name. His only clue to his identity is the ripped photograph in his pocket.

A mysterious young woman gives the rebel news of a refugee train heading toward the American lines, but before he can act, a fellow countryman informs the SS of his presence in Gorndask. In spite of the Soviet threat, the SS officers are determined not to let a Devil's Rebel escape, and set off in pursuit of him.

A short and fast-paced novel that covers a rarely seen side of World War II, Winter Sky is a fast and fascinating read. Stewart does an excellent job of depicting the problems of the Polish people, and the bravery of the Resistance fighters who spent years fighting the Nazis after the 1939 invasion. Readers are sure to admire the bewildered young hero, who is determined to do the right thing, even at the risk of putting himself in further danger. --Jessica Howard, blogger at Quirky Bookworm

To know a cat is to love a cat, and to know Cat Rackham is to love Cat Rackham. Perennially depressed and clad in a green T-shirt, Cat is the anthropomorphic emblem of a certain type of being: striving, scheming and wondering about the point of it all. Throughout his exploits, he charms, a credit to Adventure Time artist Steve Wolfhard's keen eye for the liminal space between absurdity and humanity.

This collection of short episodes falls decidedly to the adult end of the spectrum, despite its often bombastic, caricaturish style. In one instance, prompted by his chipper buddy Jeremy the squirrel, Cat Rackham searches high and low for coffee, only to find a cabin nestled in the middle of the forest. There, he's immediately scooped up by a certifiable cat lady (this reviewer doesn't use that term lightly) and housed alongside an obese and pampered fellow feline. When Cat schemes his way onto the counter (using the other cat as a stepstool, naturally), he's caught in the act, and discovers that the mistress of the house plans to assemble him into a bathrobe made of other (live) strays.

Outlandish, humorous and tenderly rendered, Cat Rackham's most winsome element is its candid confrontations with mental health. The most moving frames are wordless, depicting the titular kitty as he descends into depression throughout the seasons, only to be reinvigorated by a glimpse at mundane love. It's a lesson Cat Rackham imparts effectively: that sometimes, the simplest, silliest pleasures are the ones that keep us going. --Linnie Greene, freelance writer

Big Food Big Love is a delightful combination: it inspires with beautiful, inviting photography; it remains practical in its simplicity of ingredients and instructions; and it reveals the character of a Southern cuisine (yes, there is more than one), of a restaurant and an author.

Heather Leigh Earnhardt opens with a short and sweet account of a life that took her from the Carolinas to Louisiana and eventually to Seattle, where she opened the Wandering Goose. She covers staples of Carolina cooking and entertaining: pimento cheese and cheese straws, fried okra and Brunswick stew, red-eye gravy and perfect buttermilk biscuits--and oh, the jams!--fundamentals that readers are advised to tweak and make their own. Then there are Southern-inflected inventions, like the red tomato cheddar pie, for instance, and a few that feel more contemporary and a bit more Northwestern, like the Bluebird Grain Farms farro and collard green salad. The servings are generous, the technique level easy to moderate. Earnhardt avoids the politics of barbecue--in fact, there's really no barbecue in here except for the pulled pork butt, which she dresses in a central Carolina vinegar sauce (eastward from Tennessee, tomato becomes more vestigial in sauces, and eventually nonexistent).

There are plenty of barbecue books, restaurant books and cookbooks that focus on other regions of the South, but few that take up good ol' Carolina cooking in as big-hearted and inviting a manner as this. --Zak Nelson, writer and bookseller

Although Jessica Teich had an enviable life, with a devoted husband, two beautiful young daughters, a dog, a garden and plenty to read, she was discontent, "floating in a spiritual limbo," obsessed with fears and memories of the abuse she suffered as an adolescent. In The Future Tense of Joy, Teich openly acknowledges her anxieties and shares how reading the obituary of Lacey Cooper-Reynolds--whom she had never met--spurred her to explore the woman's life and, in doing so, understand her own.

"In her buried heart, I could hear an echo of my own," Teich writes. Like her, Lacey was a Rhodes Scholar, living in California. She was brilliant and well loved, and her suicide shocked her family and friends. Teich Googled Lacey and began talking to the woman's friends and family, wondering what sadness led her to take her life, comparing her own grief with Lacey's, and pondering whether they shared feelings of inadequacy, phobias and anxieties. As a teenager, Teich was a dancer in a company that included a man who molested and beat her. Nobody came to her aid, and fear and shame kept her silent. She fled and later built a career as a literary manager, and enjoyed a loving marriage. But motherhood and fear for her daughters' well-being tightened "this knot of longing and betrayal" rooted in the violence she had endured.

In this unusual memoir/mystery, Teich uses her considerable academic and writing talents to craft a credible and well-rounded portrait of Lacey, while gaining the confidence to examine and respect her own story--and to forgive the past and anticipate the future. --Cheryl Krocker McKeon, manager, Book Passage, San Francisco

In this bold memoir about gender dysphoria and gender confirmation surgery, Chris Edwards explains, "That feeling of finally being complete--of being who you really are--trumps everything." It ultimately takes Edwards more than three decades and 28 surgeries to realize his consummate body, but in 1974, at five years old, he already knows his true gender. It's everyone around him who seems confused. When Edwards, through the help of an amazing counselor, is finally able to share his battle with his family and friends, he finds support, compassion and encouragement. While everyone doesn't always understand, he patiently educates them--and his readers. Edwards also invites everyone to laugh with him--learning to pee standing up, mistakenly inviting the wrong woman on a date. His stark openness and dogged determination allow the audience to identify with him through their similarities, instead of fearing the differences.

Balls is a stunning self-portrait of an exceptional man, an inspiration for others who may be a gender not recognized by those around them. And it is a primer for those fortunate enough to be born "complete." With eloquence and grace, as well as sharp wit and brutal honesty, Edwards explains to his audience, "The key to understanding gender dysphoria is realizing that sexual orientation and gender identity are two totally different and completely separate things." From opening himself up to his family, friends and colleagues to sharing the intimate details of his story with the world, Chris Edwards has no shortage of moxie. Smart, funny, genuine and uplifting, Balls is sure to win a lot of hearts. --Jen Forbus of Jen's Book Thoughts

Following their 2015 Rad American Women A-Z, author Kate Schatz and illustrator Miriam Klein Stahl go global in Rad Women Worldwide, celebrating the achievements of women and girls throughout history. Their second well-researched collection of gorgeously detailed paper-cut illustrations is accessible to young readers but fascinating for grown-ups, too.

"May we all have the courage to be rad!" is the creators' challenge in the introduction to the brief bios of 40 women, representing every continent, from ancient Mesopotamia 4,300 years ago to Wimbledon and soccer's World Cup in 2007. Groundbreaking women whose names are likely lost to traditional history books are hailed here: the Mothers of the Plaza who challenged Argentina's dictatorship during the "Dirty War" of the 1970s; Australian Faith Bandler, who led a movement to end discrimination against her nation's indigenous people; Kalpana Chawla, India's first woman astronaut, who perished in the 2003 Columbia shuttle crash.

Rad women in this collection are humble, brilliant and theatrical. They pursue human rights as well as women's rights. Black performer Josephine Baker, shunned in the 1920s United States but embraced in France, spied on Nazis as a member of the French Resistance. Some Rad Women are unknown: the Guerilla Girls anonymously expose discrimination in the art world through posters, billboards and actions.

Demonstrating the dynamic movements of women who fight for a cause, Schatz and Klein end with a prose poem call to action on behalf of the "one in every 122 humans on earth who is a refugee, displaced person, or asylum seeker" and noting "Who helps? We do." --Cheryl Krocker McKeon, manager, Book Passage, San Francisco

When Nazi Germany invaded Poland during World War II, it was the beginning of the end for the millions of Jews who called that country home. But thanks to the heroic efforts of one woman, Irena Sendler, who was in charge of a resistance group, almost 2,500 Jewish children living in the Warsaw Ghetto escaped annihilation. Using meticulous research to back her account, Tilar Mazzeo takes readers to the chaotic years under Nazi rule where the slightest transgressions by Jews or their sympathizers, or the whims of a Nazi soldier, could mean life or death.

Mazzeo (The Hotel on the Place Vendome) engrosses readers with the long-buried story of "the female Schindler." Sendler was a Pole, in love with a Jewish man and had many Jewish friends; she risked death multiple times a day sneaking food, clothing and much-needed drugs and medical supplies into the ghetto while smuggling children out, through the sewers, or in suitcases, wooden vegetable bins and toolboxes, past the wall that separated the Jews from the rest of the Polish citizens. Like any history of the Holocaust, Irena's Children is not an easy read; it lays bare the atrocities committed by the Nazis and the indifference of many Poles toward the Jews. Mazzeo has written a tense account that superbly balances the horrors of the war with the valiant and incredible efforts of Sendler and her group of resistance fighters, who didn't see Jews or Aryans, but children in need of food, clothing, shelter and love. --Lee E. Cart, freelance writer and book reviewer

When Austria was annexed by Germany in 1938, Moriz Scheyer was an arts editor writing for one of Vienna's main newspapers. He was also Jewish, a fact that became a matter of life and death under Nazi rule. Asylum is Scheyer's memoir of the events leading up to and through his years as a refugee, first in Austria and later in France. It was written while hiding in a Catholic convent and hospital for the mentally ill, before the Allied invasion. Scheyer, his wife and a close family friend lived there surrounded by nuns who risked their own lives to protect them, as well as the 80 or so patients under their care.

With candor and introspection on what it meant to be a Jew during this time, Scheyer muses on the physical brutality, as well as psychological and spiritual damage, the Nazis inflicted on his family and all Jews under their control. He leads readers through his harrowing moments of deportation from Austria, his internment in a French concentration camp and subsequent rescue, his attempt to flee into neutral Switzerland and, finally, his years in hiding where--as he and others like him waited moment by moment for the agony to end--he wrote. He reflects on the ease with which non-Jews collaborated with the Nazis, and on those who actively resisted the party's atrocious demands.

The original Asylum manuscript was destroyed in 1949 by Scheyer's stepson, but a copy was later found and translated by his step-grandson P.N. Singer, allowing readers rare insight into one man's mind during this tragic historical era. --Lee E. Cart, freelance writer and book reviewer

Christine Negroni (Deadly Departure) is an aviation journalist and air safety investigator with years of experience. In The Crash Detectives: Investigating the World's Most Mysterious Air Disasters, she uses her expertise to primarily analyze Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, which has mystified pilots, investigators and journalists alike since it vanished on March 8, 2014, with 227 passengers and 12 crew members presumably still aboard.

Debunking far-fetched conspiracy theories and using countless other flights as examples, Negroni explains her theory that hypoxia could have caused the strange events of March 8, when the flight veered drastically off course, and that tiny mechanical errors could have led to the oxygen deficient conditions. Citing flights from Greece to Hawaii, and her own experiences in a hypoxia simulation, Negroni shows how a lack of oxygen leads to giddiness, poor decision making and a rapid deterioration of physical and mental abilities.

While not quite as exciting as its title would lead one to think it is, The Crash Detectives is nevertheless fascinating. Negroni analyzes flights from the 1930s all the way up to Flight 370, detailing incidents involving bad weather, mechanical failure and other crazy circumstances that can happen in midair. Full of meticulous research and fascinating anecdotes, it is the perfect light nonfiction to read anywhere (except, perhaps, on an airplane). A captivating blend of history, science and real-life mystery, The Crash Detectives is sure to find a wide audience. --Jessica Howard, blogger at Quirky Bookworm

David Macaulay is well loved for his picture books such as Rome Antics and the Caldecott-winning Black and White, and for the gorgeous, sweeping lines in his architecture series. Undoubtedly, however, The Way Things Work stands as one of his finest achievements, educating all ages on the ins and outs of machines, from simple levers to complex electronics, in its original 1988 version and in the revised The New Way Things Work that followed a decade later. Macaulay embraces further changes brought by rapidly advancing digital technology in The Way Things Work Now.

Whether readers long to revisit the wheel or peek inside a video-game controller, hybrid car, smartphone or LCD screen, Macaulay awaits with beautiful, easily understandable drawings, meticulous cross-sections, boiled-down explanations and, of course, a herd of whimsical woolly mammoths. The author-illustrator's ability to delight both the eye and the funny bone remains the great genius of the book. Seasoned with a wry, absurdist sensibility, the pages provide seemingly infinite opportunities for I Spy, new discoveries and sight gags. The categorization structure of the previous edition is preserved, assigning objects to sections focused on basic mechanics, harnessing the elements, wavelength technology, and electrical and automated devices. The new sections triumphantly revitalize "The Digital Domain." The afterword still gives historical context for invention and discovery timeframes, and the requisite index and glossary remain handy features.

Encyclopedic, logical and masterfully illustrated, Macaulay's work reminds those raised in the Internet age of the power and sheer pleasure of a truly brilliant reference book. Technologies may go in and out of fashion, but The Way Things Work and its progeny? Never. --Jaclyn Fulwood, lead librarian at Del City Public Library, Okla.

Kate Beasley's debut novel has a terrific opening line: "The bullfrog was only half dead, which was perfect." Best half dead, because 10-year-old Gertie Reece Foy wants to resuscitate the bullfrog, boast about it in her back-to-school "summer speech," and be that much closer to being the best fifth grader ever--not just in Alabama but in the world.

Gertie's ultimate goal is to prove to the mother who left her that she is important. She will knock on her traitorous mom's door, "gleaming with greatness," and show her that she is "one-hundred-percent, not-from-concentrate awesome and that she didn't need a mother anyway. So there."

It's sometimes painful to watch Gertie tie herself in knots to be perfect, but Aunt Rae is always there to try to boost her great-niece's morale. This loving, supportive woman--and Gertie's often-absent-but-caring-father--are at the core of Gertie's Leap to Greatness, offering a gentle nudge for readers to remember what one has vs. longing for what one doesn't.

The ferocity of Gertie is something to admire, marvel at, and almost fear when she's feeling "dangerous." Her observations about everything from how Aunt Rae should be able to sense her unhappiness "like how dogs could smell fear and earthquakes and alien invasions" to The Waltons (a TV show "about this big family that wore old-fashioned clothes and talked about how much they loved each other") make this an energetic, entertaining read. Caldecott Honor artist Jillian Tamaki's (This One Summer) vivacious, often kinetic illustrations of Gertie and her entourage make the story leap to life. --Karin Snelson, children's & YA editor, Shelf Awareness