It's the rare novelist who can build a world so convincing that it's difficult to leave and reenter reality after having become so thoroughly enmeshed. They're the writers who win Nobel prizes and are still anthologized years after their deaths. They woo jaded critics and laypeople alike. They're writers like Zadie Smith, author of NW, White Teeth and most recently Swing Time.

Named for the 1936 musical starring Fred Astaire (who dons blackface during one pivotal scene), the novel centers on the mostly uneasy relationship between Tracey, a talented dancer, and her friend, the narrator, both of whom persevere with varying levels of success against the tide of their low-income London neighborhood. The novel's dealings with race are as subtle and artful as its prose; the reader witnesses both girls' attempts at forging identities amidst a variety of insults and snubs, absent fathers and well-intentioned mothers, yet Smith never wields these themes bluntly. The novel's most artful component is her ability to insinuate all manner of existential questions without verging on the moralistic or all knowing. As these women persist, their paths forking, the reader too feels fractured by the many ways reality can fulfill or defer a dream.

Spanning decades, musical genres, dance styles, continents and myriad personas, Swing Time is an ambitious, all-encompassing novel that devours its audience, swallowing all other truths in its perfectly constructed reality. Let the kettle sing, let the phone rattle; the novel's sharply rendered characters and forward-charging plot are as elegant and human as a dance. --Linnie Greene, freelance writer

Fannie Flagg's sprawling and intricately plotted saga The Whole Town's Talking chronicles the founding of a small Missouri farming community called Elmwood Springs and, over the next 140 years, follows the quirky and endearing townspeople through their lives, deaths and beyond. Yes, beyond. When the town's inhabitants die and are buried in Still Meadows cemetery, their conscious existence continues and they (like the characters in Thornton Wilder's Our Town) watch and comment on the activities that continue in the living world.

Three of Flagg's previous novels were set in Elmwood Springs (including Can't Wait to Get to Heaven), and longtime fans of her uplifting fiction will appreciate discovering the backgrounds of many of their favorite characters, including plain-talking Elner Shimfissle, her social climbing sister, Ida, and Ida's nervous daughter, Norma. There are also numerous new and endearing characters, including town founder Lordor Nordstrom; his mail-order bride, Katrina; schoolteacher Lucille Bremer, who becomes the official greeter to new arrivals at Still Meadows cemetery; and the town's Peeping Tom, Lester Shingle, who has to wait decades to discover who murdered him.

Flagg is a natural storyteller who fills her novels with offbeat characters, complex plotting and generally upbeat messages. As she writes, "It takes time and a lot of suffering, but sometimes, when you least expect it, life has a strange way of working out." The Whole Town's Talking is a real crowd-pleaser: an exuberant, ambitious and plus-sized novel (more than 400 pages) that is filled with warmth, sentimental nostalgia and hilarious Southern sass. --Kevin Howell, independent reviewer and marketing consultant

Celebrated crime writer Lawrence Block has assembled a beguiling volume of stories, all taking inspiration from the paintings of American realist painter Edward Hopper. Each story begins with a short introduction to the contributor and a full-color reproduction of the specific Hopper painting. The stories create vibrant, compelling worlds from Hopper's on-canvas work, each one a peek into complex human relationships.

While Stephen King's "The Music Room"--as twisted a tale as any in the volume, with kidnapping and murder on offer--may be the most high-profile piece in the collection, it's definitely not the only good one. Many of the stories have a strongly feminist stance, perhaps intentionally and ironically at cross purpose with the original painting or the artist himself. Megan Abbott's "Girlie Show" is told from the perspective of Pauline, who poses nude for her painter husband. She overhears him talking about the burlesque show with an embarrassed, hushed reverence and realizes that what he's painting may not quite match her own body. The ensuing visit to the theater where the girlie show takes place leads Pauline to an empowering moment, which is depicted in the Hopper painting.

Other entries in this collection are more fantastical, less tethered to reality. Craig Ferguson's "Taking Care of Business" uses Hopper's South Truro Church as the backdrop for a bit of a ghost story, itself anchored by the church, its congregants and a preacher's fondness for marijuana.

In Sunlight or in Shadow shows off exceptional talent with 17 superb short stories based on superlative Hopper paintings, all inspired pairings of artist and writers. --Rob LeFebvre

In Mincemeat: The Education of an Italian Chef, debut author and chef Leonardo Lucarelli chronicles a haphazard career in professional kitchens throughout Italy, working long hours amid inept sous chefs, illegal dishwashers and unscrupulous owners, and lots of sex and prodigious amounts of drugs. It's not the first version of this story we've seen, but it's one of the most personal and heartfelt.

Lucarelli is not a celebrity chef; he freely admits to stumbling into his profession. Born to hippie parents in India and raised in Umbria, he went to college to study anthropology and started throwing dinner parties for friends. He lucked into his first real restaurant job with a chef who didn't examine his résumé too closely. After that, Lucarelli careened from one failing restaurant to another, gradually honing his skills and his tolerance for drugs and alcohol.

If there is a theme in Mincemeat, it's the accidental nature of fate. Lucarelli goes wherever chance and opportunity take him, knowing that, at his level, a chef's skills are fungible. His writing is genial and breathless; he veers between ardent stoicism and comic indignation. The people he writes about are what give the memoir shape and make it--and his career--meaningful. He lovingly describes friendships with a care and attention usually reserved for lovers. That's what makes Mincemeat sing. Lucarelli's sensitivity and sincerity sets him apart, and will keep him in good stead if he continues to write. --Zak Nelson

Writing to Save a Life by John Edgar Wideman (Sent for You Yesterday, Philadelphia Fire) is a heartfelt and emotionally bruising mix of journalism, memoir and fictional vignettes that tackles the relationships between fathers and sons, familial and societal wounds, and racial injustice in the United States. The lynching of 14-year-old Emmett Till in 1955, for wolf whistling at a white woman, serves as the starting point. Till's mother famously permitted an open casket funeral for her son, and Wideman would remain haunted by a Jet magazine photograph of the young man's battered face at the funeral.

While researching the Till case many years later, Wideman discovered that Louis Till, Emmett's father, was arrested and hanged for rape and murder in Italy during World War II. This set Wideman off on a multi-generational, multi-continent journey that touches on his relationship with his father. He traveled to France to visit Louis Till's gravesite, and after reviewing Till's court martial records, which he received after countless false turns, Wideman reaches the conclusion that Till the elder was probably railroaded. He ties Emmett's tragic case to the wider ramifications for people of color in a tragically flawed justice system while also meditating on his fraught and wounded relationship with his father: "Why couldn't I say then what I would say now--you're always part of the picture, Dad. Picture is you, me, both of us and this whole precarious family in the sh*t together."

Wideman concocts a heady literary brew from straight reportage of court transcripts, fictional vignettes of an imaginary version of Louis Till and powerful memories of his own journeys. --Nancy Powell, freelance writer and technical consultant

Leslie Bennetts (The Feminine Mistake) explores the peaks and valleys in the life of Joan Rivers, the heralded, often outrageous comic who paved the way for other women in show business. Rivers was an "insatiable overachiever" who defied her parents' expectations for a traditional life and relentlessly pursued a comedy career despite a long list of naysayers who felt Rivers lacked talent. She wanted "to make people laugh so she could feel loved in return." With fearless courage, Rivers battled her way to the top, plummeted time and time again and forged comebacks on ever grander scales.

Drawing from interviews with friends, fellow comics, rivals and Rivers's own words, the narrative probes the comic's insecurities, her tastes in decorating and entertaining, her love life and often contentious marriage, her fiery relationship with her daughter, her unmerciful ribbing of Elizabeth Taylor, and her many plastic surgeries. Rivers's rift with Johnny Carson precipitated the devastating heartbreak of midlife catastrophes, which inspired her to reinvent herself completely. Insightful, entertaining anecdotes bolster--and often dispel--stories manufactured by Rivers herself, which furthered a 60-year career that included an Emmy and a Grammy Award, a Tony nomination, reality TV programs, bestselling books and a successful QVC clothing and jewelry line. Beyond building a billion-dollar brand, Rivers generously lent her support to AIDS patients and many others. This fascinating, well-researched portrait of a comedic legend--a "vastly influential trailblazer" and "business powerhouse"--will appeal to Rivers's fans and also earn her new ones. --Kathleen Gerard, blogger at Reading Between the Lines

In 1936, actress Mary Astor was embroiled in a nasty, headline-grabbing custody battle with her second husband, Dr. Franklyn Thorpe, over their young daughter. Thorpe stole two 200-page ledgers that Astor used as diaries to detail her amorous adventures in Hollywood and the numerous affairs she, Thorpe and many Hollywood's luminaries were conducting. Leaking pages from these diaries to the press, Thorpe threatened to ruin Astor's career by exposing her ongoing affair with married playwright George S. Kaufman. Many film studios also feared that revealed intimate details could tarnish the images of her friends and costars, including MGM head Irving Thalberg and his wife, Norma Shearer. Joseph Egan's meticulously researched and compulsively readable The Purple Diaries re-creates the two-month court hearing and simultaneous media frenzy through diary excerpts, vintage reporting, court transcripts and new interviews.

Astor emerges as a complex and fascinating person. "Brought up to be hard on herself, she was equally hard on those around her," writes Egan. While neither warm nor nurturing, she was willing to risk her livelihood to prevent her daughter from being raised the way that had stunted her own childhood. Egan does an outstanding job of revealing the emotional background behind each player's actions, never creating villains in this drama.

The Purple Diaries is a fascinating piece of Hollywood detective work, a character study of a forward-thinking and sexually liberated woman and an examination of the tabloid press. Egan takes an 80-year-old scandal and brings it to life with compassion and psychological insight. Film buffs will find The Purple Diaries irresistible. --Kevin Howell, independent reviewer and marketing consultant

In his previous book, How We Got to Now, Steven Johnson examined the evolution of six inventions. In this follow-up, Wonderland, Johnson analyzes six entertainment categories, tracing the progression of simple elements of amusement or pleasure, such as shopping or illusion, into complex world-changing systems, like the Industrial Age or moving pictures. He calls it the "Hummingbird Effect." Johnson explains, "Everyone knows the old saying 'necessity is the mother of invention,' but if you do a paternity test on many of the modern world's most important ideas or institutions, you will find, invariably, that leisure and play were involved in the conception as well." To illustrate his point, he takes his audience on a winding trip through their DNA.

Using strong storytelling skills punctuated by frequent illustrations, Johnson presents fascinating history and science with captivating anecdotes and explanations. He explores beyond straightforward motivations like money or wealth, often trudging through devastating atrocities such as war and slavery, to show that simple delight and pleasure can lead to major historical and cultural changes. For instance, the European taste for spices prompted colonial exploitation, resulting in new forms of cartography and water travel.

From fashion to games, Wonderland demonstrates that observing play in current culture has the potential to open a window onto future innovations. This provocative journey promises to spark readers' curiosity, with Johnson's assortment of delights keeping them wondering what will be next. It will also have readers pondering their own pleasures, theorizing about changes the hummingbird's wings might provoke several centuries from now. --Jen Forbus, freelancer

Big History, as the name suggests, is not a field for compartmentalized ideas. It is a relatively new academic discipline that seeks to unite various branches of physical sciences with the liberal arts. Together, it posits, the humanities and sciences like biology, cosmology, physics and chemistry can give us a fuller picture of what geologist Walter Alvarez calls the "human situation." Think, for example, of a historian's compartmentalized view of any one historical period. Not only is this limited in the scope of history, but it also ignores the geological forces that shape human activity, and the physics, chemistry and cosmology behind the creation of those geological features. Big History seems on some level like a never-ending train of "why" questions, but it results in a fascinatingly full understanding of our world.

In A Most Improbable Journey: A Big History of Our Planet and Ourselves, Walter Alvarez, professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and author of T. Rex and the Crater of Doom, uses Big History to understand the human situation better--how we got to where we are, and what "here" really is. If that sounds broad, that's because it is. A Most Improbable Journey starts at the Big Bang and narrows from there into four sections: Cosmos, Earth, Life and Humanity, closing on Homo sapiens and the astronomically incredible events that created the world and the universe as we know it. A Most Improbable Journey is a fun, fast read that will guide readers to untold other lines of inquiry. --Tobias Mutter, freelance reviewer

Mirth, a word used often by craftsman Nick Offerman, sounds like what it means: spontaneous amusement expressed in brief laughter while enjoying the companionship of others. No matter which trade he's plying--acting (Parks & Recreation), writing (Gumption), performing live comedy or building things--Offerman exudes a childlike glee he wants everyone to share.

Good Clean Fun, Offerman's aptly titled third book, mixes mirth into two of his passions--wordsmithing and woodworking. He began working with wood while growing up in rural Illinois and the craft supported him as he made his way in the acting world, ultimately resulting in the Offerman Woodshop, a woodworkers' collective in East Los Angeles. Good Clean Fun is a beautiful testament to his lifelong love affair with shopcraft that will educate and delight wood nerds, language lovers, humorists and Offerman fans.

Packed with swoon-worthy photographs, cartoons, sketches and recipes for perfect cookout fare, Good Clean Fun is more than a straightforward how-to manual. It includes projects for those who have completed 1,000 dovetails and folks who have never picked up a hammer, while offering advice on tools, safety, shop fashion, the relation of beard length to virility and shop setups for the most limited of spaces.

Most importantly, Offerman is an evangelist for community and the benefits of artistic collaboration, espousing the belief that one should "always maintain the attitude of a student." The writing is smart and clever, sprinkled with a ye olde good times sentiment as well as modern day tomfoolery, and one can't help but get caught up in the good clean fun. --Lauren O'Brien of Malcolm Avenue Review

British author V. Peyton's Silo and the Rebel Raiders is the witty, rousing tale of a cunning boy adventurer, set in a carefully crafted, vividly described dystopian United Kingdom, hundreds of years after the Great Catastrophe that wiped out 21st-century technology.

Ten-year-old, web-footed Silo Zyco of the island marshes--outcast, possible orphan and "Thirteenth Chronicle Keeper for the Islanders"--is a "restless, ambitious" seer who dreams bigger than a bleak, predictable lifetime of eating eels... perhaps even "a glorious career in the Capital." When the Capital's visiting inspector discovers Silo's "rare and precious" psychic abilities, the boy is recruited by the government to help "see" the past's most coveted secrets, "the source of the Ancients' power." Silo quickly learns the "grim, fortresslike" Capital is a much darker place than he imagined, his fellow child seers (even the friendly ones) are suspicious, and the titular "rebel raiders" may be more friend than foe. His "glorious career" proves to be neither.

Some of the novel's funniest moments are found in its study of the Ancients: the misinterpretation of football as "goatball," a bewildering book called Making the Most of Your Microwave, or talk of the "Us of Ay" ("the land of the brave and the home of the free") as a faraway place that may just be the stuff of legends. With vivacious, larger-than-life characters and a rollicking pace, Silo is a wonderfully entertaining blend of classic orphan tale, satire, heroic quest and fantasy. --Kyla Paterno, former children's & YA book buyer

In this splendid tribute to British legend and Peter Rabbit creator Beatrix Potter (1866-1943), 32 acclaimed children's illustrators, such as Brian Pinkney, Melissa Sweet, Jon Agee, Rosemary Wells and Chris Raschka, apply their formidable talents and distinctive styles to reimagine her much-loved characters.

Jon Agee takes on Mr. McGregor, the great villain of The Tale of Peter Rabbit, in a boldly graphic close-up involving bared man teeth and quivering bunny ears: "There was something strangely adorable and terrifying about a rabbit hiding in a watering can, with his ears poking out of the top," he writes. Chris Raschka notes, "How can you not like Tommy Brock? He is so thoroughly disagreeable.... Perfection is nice enough, but it can get a little boring." His delicious portrait of Potter's wasp-eating badger with the cabbage-leaf cigar (from The Tale of Mr. Tod) is watercolor-wonderful. G. Brian Karas illustrates a scene from Potter's own favorite tale, The Tailor of Gloucester, with thoroughly charming images of "the industrial and sartorial" mice. He writes, "Her stories could, with the smallest amount of imagination, be real."

Nine of Potter's illustrated stories are included here in chronological order by publication date: Peter Rabbit, Squirrel Nutkin, The Tailor of Gloucester, Two Bad Mice, Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle, The Pie and the Patty Pan, Mr. Jeremy Fisher, Jemima Puddle-Duck and Mr. Tod. "About This Book" introductions offer delightful insights into each story. Anyone who loves Beatrix Potter--and children's book illustration--will adore the beautiful, playful, lovingly curated A Celebration of Beatrix Potter. "Ducks and bunnies notwithstanding," writes Pat Cummings, "every story needs a bit of trouble." --Karin Snelson, children's & YA editor, Shelf Awareness

Preschoolers will get sleepy--very, very sleepy--as they make their way through the darkening, night-falling pages of Goodnight Everyone by Irish designer and illustrator Chris Haughton. His vibrant collage-like illustrations in jewel-toned matte colors are immediately recognizable from his other picture books: Shh! We Have a Plan, Little Owl Lost and Oh No, George!

The sun is setting, and droopy-eyed animals, one by one, make preparations for bed. Mice, hares and deer yawn and stretch... but one wide-eyed bear cub isn't falling in line: "[W]ell, I'm not sleepy," says Little Bear, even though Great Big Bear is clearly on the verge of slumber herself. Little Bear wants to play, but none of the other animals has the energy.

"aren't you tired?" ask the deer
"oh no, no! not even a little bit"
says Little Bear

But young readers with eyes wide open will notice Little Bear's eyes are finally starting to close, too, and soon everyone is snoring and sighing, fast asleep. Mesmerizing, repetitious text ("the mice are sleepy... the hares are sleepy... the deer are sleepy") will have children fighting to swallow their own yawns. Early on, pages of increasing size reveal the widening scene, from tiny mice to massive bears and beyond to the starry sky. Endpapers feature midnight blue constellations--the southern sky at the beginning and the northern sky at the end, highlighting the bear-friendly Ursas Major and Minor, of course!

If Margaret Wise Brown's Goodnight Moon doesn't do the trick, Goodnight Everyone will surely send the most stubbornly awake off to slumberland. --Emilie Coulter, freelance writer and editor