Matthew and Jenae Batt discover that what follows the eventual cooling of newlywed bliss isn't promising. Their best friends are divorcing, leaving them worried that a trapdoor might open under their own marriage. Then Matt loses his dad and grandmother in quick succession and, as Jenae stands by him and his family, he realizes that he still deeply loves her. Determined to improve their lives, Matt suggests getting out of their less-than-desirable apartment and buying a home.

In the Sugarhouse district of Salt Lake City, they find a dilapidated former crack house whose owner's attempts at renovation have done more harm than good. Hoping to make a renovator's nightmare into the house of their dreams, Matt and Jenae buy the house and hop on the DIY ride of their lives, an uproarious journey of amateur power-tool operation, stripping floors with the equivalent of stabilized napalm, and developing a man-crush on an "artisan concrete worker."

Along the way, Matt grapples with his dysfunctional family, especially his grandfather. A wealthy and incurable womanizer, Grandpa has coped with his wife's death by parading his girlfriends in front of the shocked family. Readers will laugh and cringe as Matt tries to strike a balance between convincing Grandpa to rein it in and not upsetting their relationship. (Grandpa holds the loan on their fixer-upper.)

Anyone who has tackled home renovation or dysfunctional family blues will chuckle and nod knowingly at Matt's experiences. Everyone else: get out your belt sander and prepare to laugh along with this witty, lighthearted memoir. --Jaclyn Fulwood, blogger, Infinite Reads

Rebecca Stott's Darwin and the Barnacle covered an eight-year period of Charles Darwin's life, during which he conducted research on a single, though unusual, species of barnacle found in Chile. That well-received book is the perfect precursor to Darwin's Ghosts: The Secret History of Evolution, a wonderfully written and thoroughly researched accounting of the men who influenced Darwin in his quest to define the concept of natural selection and the process of evolution. Interestingly, the first printing of On the Origin of Species by Natural Selection contained no acknowledgment of predecessors; Darwin eventually created (and subsequently modified) a list of those who influenced him for later editions of the book. Stott has expanded on this list to create a well-rounded and chronological survey of opinion regarding evolutionary thought.

Stott's subjects range from the diverse writings of the self-educated Jahiz during the Abbasid Empire in 850, to the curiosities investigated by Leonardo da Vinci in the late 1400s in Milan, to the naturalist-philosophers who debated at the Jardin des Plantes in Paris in the early 19th century and ultimately to the fevered dreams of Alfred Russel Wallace, who pushed Darwin to publish his masterpiece. Though the topic might seem intimidating at first glance, Stott has a novelist's gift for storytelling (as previous novels such as The Coral Thief demonstrate). Darwin's Ghosts will make a fantastic addition to your summer reading list. --Roni K. Devlin, owner, Literary Life Bookstore & More

Many parents who looked forward to an empty nest when their kids became adults are finding themselves in a different stage, one Sally Koslow experienced as a mother. She didn't just write Slouching Toward Adulthood; she lived it as well. Interviewing more than a hundred "adultescents" and their families, Koslow reveals how baby boomers' empty nests are re-populating, becoming way-stations for adult children boomeranging back home to gain financial stability and job-hunt--or simply because they have nowhere else to go.

Are these 20-and 30-somethings victims of the economy or spoiled? Did helicopter parents raise kids with a heightened sense of entitlement? And how do families cope with the progeny living with the 'rents while following adult social norms (but often strewing wet towels and dirty dishes like, well, kids)?

Koslow balances candid stories shared by parents and their dependents with statistics and analysis from dozens of experts, softening hard facts with humor. In one passage, she cites bad news from a Charles Schwab study, the Bureau of Labor Statistics and FinAid.org, before concluding that "plenty of adultescents have little choice but to seek bailouts from the Bank of Mom and Dad."

Slouching Toward Adulthood also speaks directly to adultescents themselves, with a look at the trend towards late marriage and childbearing. Without judging, she suggests "gentle attitude adjustment" to all parties under any roof sheltering multiple adult generations. --Cheryl Krocker McKeon, bookseller

Flash sales. Online coupon codes. Outlet malls stuffed with discounted merchandise. These are the hallmarks of the 21st-century American fashion landscape--and, as Elizabeth Cline found, falling for them can fill consumers' closets to bursting with cheap, ill-fitting, foreign-made clothing.

Dissatisfied with her own overstuffed closet of shoddy, generically trendy pieces, Cline wondered: Is there a more stylish, thoughtful and socially responsible way to dress? Why has the U.S. garment industry all but disappeared? And what is the cost--not only monetary but human and environmental--of our voracious appetite for "fast fashion?"

In Overdressed, Cline researches the history of fashion (both couture and mass-market) and traces the decline of department stores and home sewing skills. She visits factories in China, the Dominican Republic and New York's Garment District, learning about the industry's often deplorable working conditions and the difficulty of staying current and maintaining quality without sacrificing the bottom line.

Cline interviews workers, designers, industry executives and the heads of charities and textile recyclers (who, like the rest of us, have more clothing than they know what to do with). Educated consumers may find her naïve at first, but readers will appreciate her thorough approach. Cline urges shoppers to stop slavishly following the latest trends and instead look at clothing with a critical eye, learning to buy sustainably made, high-quality pieces and maintain them with care. This approach, while not a cure-all, proves more satisfying and ultimately less expensive--and may even create space in those crammed closets. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams

In We Learn Nothing, political cartoonist and New York Times essayist Tim Kreider deploys his wicked satirical genius with introspective wisecrackings that make us laugh, cry and suffer in humiliating discomfort as he maintains that, even when given the chance to make life-changing decisions, we revert to old habits.

For example, a stabbing Kreider experiences as life-altering becomes, after a month or two, just another page in the book of life--out of sight, out of mind. He also muses on Lisa Nowak, the NASA astronaut who drove 900 miles--allegedly wearing adult diapers--to kidnap her lover's new girlfriend, and reminds us that "we've all worn the diaper" of unrequited love and ensuing heartbreak.

Youthful bar-hopping escapades that wear thin in middle age, obsessive attachments to long-lost family and a con-artist uncle and the easy "defriending" of online friends all turn into moments of critical self-examination. "Although we may unconsciously experience [anger] as upsetting," Krieder writes in another essay, "somatically it is a lot like the initial rush of an opiate, a tingling warmth you feel on the insides of your elbows and wrists." Saving emotional tear-jerkers for last, "Chutes and Ladders" becomes Kreider's most poignant admission of unconditional love and friendship, and an assertion of the possibility of thoughtful redemption.

No one is immune to Kreider's self-deprecating sarcasm. Like a tornado that rips apart the foundations of established towns, so, too, do Kreider's essays tug at our heartstrings, stripping human behavior of all its pretty, petty pretensions. --Nancy Powell, freelance writer

Anthony Heilbut (The Gospel Sound) is a Grammy-winning record producer famous for his work with gospel artists like Mahalia Jackson and Marion Williams. The eight essays collected in The Fan Who Knew Too Much reveal Heilbut's polymath talents, as he meditates in surprising ways on a wide range of topics.

The leadoff essay, "The Children and Their Secret Closet," is a fascinating, revelatory history of the significant role of gays in the gospel church. To Heilbut, they are the "unacknowledged arbiters of the culture," from early key figures such as Little Ax and Norsalus McKissick, Mahalia Jackson (who preferred the company of gay men because the other kind only brought her "grief"), James Cleveland, the "king of gospel music" who would ultimately die of AIDS, and James Baldwin, the "greatest writer to come out of the gospel church."

Heilbut follows with an insightful, penetrating profile of Aretha Franklin, successfully arguing that the history of black America "could be divided into pre- and post Aretha." Another essay updates the role of emigrés from Hitler's Germany in the U.S. (the subject of Heilbut's 1983 book, Exiles in Paradise) while "The Emperor of Ambivalence" praises the writings of Joseph Roth. From there, Heilbut moves on to the "fascinating phenomenon" of the soap opera, focusing on Irna Phillips, an unwed mother who "helped domesticate Freud for the masses" as the creator of As the World Turns and The Guiding Light.

With an essay on male sopranos, one on the blues and finally the essay that gives the collection its title, Heilbut completes his breathtaking trip through American culture. --Tom Lavoie, former publisher

If you loved the Oscar-winning film that goes by the same title, you will take to heart the book on which it is based. William Joyce exploits each medium to the fullest.

Morris Lessmore's life "was a book of his own writing, one orderly page after another." This serene opening scene shatters when a twister carries Morris away and sets him down in a black-and-white terrain. A woman appears in vibrant color in the sky, pulled by "a festive squadron of flying books." She sends down a volume with Humpty Dumpty featured in its pages, and the fellow leads Morris to a large building where light shines through the windows and shelves of books flutter their pages, "as if each book were asking to be opened."

In Joyce's artwork, the books come to life as a full cast of characters. After Morris repairs a damaged book, he reads it to revive it. He runs across the tops of capital letters and dangles from the hook of a J. "All stories matter," he concludes. As Morris distributes books to his queued-up neighbors, they turn from black-and-white sketches to full-color portraits. In the most moving scene, the books surround the now white-haired man: "Morris Lessmore became stooped and crinkly. But the books never changed. Their stories stayed the same," and they care for him as he has cared for them.

Morris stands in for all book lovers, and reminds us of the way stories live on only when we share them. --Jennifer M. Brown, children's editor, Shelf Awareness

Alternating chapters in prose and graphic novel scenes tell a haunting tale of two sisters who allow a boy to come between them.

Fifteen-year-old Tessa, her best friend Celine and Tessa's 13-year-old sister, Lulu, go to the summer carnival, where they run into football player Charlie Evans and his buddies. Tessa likes Charlie, and Celine likes boys in general, so the girls join the guys. When they pair off to enter the curiosity sideshow tent, however, Charlie winds up with Lulu instead of Tessa, and Tessa gets thrown together with Jasper Kleine. Tessa finds herself strangely attracted to Jasper, but what would people think if they knew she felt drawn to the class "weirdo?" Lulu and Charlie emerge from the tent hand in hand, which ignites Tessa's anger. Lulu and Celine bond over their boy talk, and Tessa withdraws, stealing away to meet Jasper in the woods. Tragedy strikes, and Tessa believes that her feelings of envy somehow triggered the events.

Castellucci's (Boy Proof) prose brims with wise observations about the all-consuming feelings of adolescence. Tessa loves her sister and wants to be happy for her, but her jealous feelings leak out in toxic ways. Powell's (Swallow Me Whole) graphic novel chapters cast Tessa as Medusa, who turns her onlookers to stone. Teens will see that his scenes of the mythological characters take on a chilling truth in light of the tragedy at the story's core.

Yet there is redemption in this page-turning tale, and an acceptance that feelings alone cannot determine humans' fates. --Jennifer M. Brown, children's editor, Shelf Awareness

Those of us who grew up tormented by siblings dreamt that everything would be perfect if they'd just disappear one day. Which is just what happens to 13-year-old Egg.

Ignored by his father and harassed by both his sister and brother, Egg watches all three fly off in a hot air balloon. He misses them, but finds his life so much improved on beautiful Sunrise Island (where the family takes their twice-yearly vacations) that he doesn't mind--until someone tries to kick him off a cliff. From there, this highly enjoyable book picks up speed and doesn't stop until the last page.

Egg grew up across the bay on Deadweather Island, populated by pirates. But nothing could have prepared him for the world he suddenly faces, full of ancient legends and double-crossing businessmen. As he tries to figure out who wants his family dead and why, he finds that the only people he can trust are a one-armed cabin boy (who tried to kill him when they first met) and a girl he has a crush on (and whose father wants Egg dead).

Rodkey's smart, fast-paced writing is a great match for fans of the Mysterious Benedict Society books who crave a little more danger. Though parts of it might be a little violent for some younger readers, older readers, especially boys, will be delighted by the author's quick wit and the story's twists and turns. They will anxiously await the next installment in The Chronicles of Egg. --Stephanie Anderson (aka Bookavore), manager of WORD bookstore