The Moonlight Sonata at the Mayo Clinic is the third book in a quartet of memoirs documenting Nora Gallagher's quest to live her faith in the modern world. In Things Seen and Unseen, Gallagher chronicled her experiences as a "tourist" amid Christianity. In Practicing Resurrection, she reflected upon her brother's death and considered entering the Episcopalian religious life. Now, Gallagher seems baptized by fire when a routine eye exam--one she almost cancels--propels her into a web of uncertainty about her failing eyesight.

The story is structured in three parts: "Drowning" reveals a serious inflammation of Gallagher's optic nerve. In "Limbo," she is suddenly at the mercy (or lack thereof) of doctors and a medical establishment unable to offer a concrete diagnosis. After a year of searching for answers, Gallagher and her husband finally make a pilgrimage from their home in Santa Barbara, Calif., to the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, where specialists offer insight and treatment options. In "Recalled to Life," Gallagher begins to process the ambiguity of her condition, but not before additional complications impede her progress.

Mystery, confusion and doubt infuse the unmitigated honesty of this memoir that maps the broad implications of disability. As she loses aspects of her sight, her ability to read and her faith, 60-year-old Gallagher examines her life and mines her liberal Christian beliefs. Church fails to provide comfort and a sense of connection, but words do, and Gallagher artfully employs them to write a beautifully rendered portrait of the frailty of the human condition. --Kathleen Gerard, blogger at Reading Between the Lines

In his novels, William Wharton (1925-2008) often wrote about the shattering effects of war. His protagonists in Birdy and A Midnight Clear dealt with the violence, absurdity and randomness of war with varying degrees of success, always through a distancing veil of fiction. Shrapnel, a memoir of his World War II experiences, is a document of the actual events--some humorous, some harrowing--that inspired his classic novels.

Shrapnel describes in exacting detail the litany of absurdities a wartime grunt endures before being sent into combat, as Wharton endures the strain of mind-numbing repetition and the moronic orders of martinet commanders. When he finally sees fighting, the randomness of who survives and who dies leaves a deep impression. The cool, unemotional narrative makes the instances of violence more real and the black humor more aching.

Wharton proves his competence in combat, but lacks the butt-kissing instinct for sustained success in uniform. His various, low-level rebellions to protest the constant stupidities will remind many of Catch-22. One event, recounted with clinical detachment, encapsulates and underscores the wound war left on Wharton's psyche; as innocent soldiers die around him, the realization dawns that something important has also died inside the survivors.

The emotionally charged Shrapnel is a worthy addition to World War II literature and a well-crafted capstone to Wharton's literary career. --Donald Powell, freelance writer

With her husband, author Bill McKibben, often traveling and their daughter away at school, Sue Halpern and her Labradoodle, Pransky, had time on their paws. They took on therapy dog training as their mission. Pransky, then seven, a good and smart pet, had spent her life romping off-leash in the Vermont woods, but after months of heeling, stopping, staying and coming, they earned Pransky's red bandanna.

In A Dog Walks into a Nursing Home, Halpern (Four Wings and a Prayer) entertainingly relates the often humorous anecdotes of Pransky's therapy-dog visits. But she also ponders their experiences, and intersperses amid Pransky's tales ancient and modern philosophies, the history of care for the elderly and discussions of the financial, medical and psychological ramifications of end-of-life care.

We get to know the nursing home residents and their relationship to Pransky, who could sense not only whose cabinet held Milkbones, but who needed a cuddle, or whose spasmodic hand longed to lie on her head. Sue was a willing conversationalist at the end of Pransky's leash, but "hope was the thing with wispy, tan tail feathers."

Halpern asks "What makes a good life?" near the book's end. She offers ample anecdotes from Pransky's work, along with religious and scholarly tenets, leaving readers with this inspiration: be charitable, and never underestimate the power of dog love. --Cheryl Krocker McKeon, bookseller, Book Passage, San Francisco

While Tom Clavin's The DiMaggios would be any baseball lover's dream, it transcends mere fan adulation. It is a touching, penetrating look at the dynamics of family, a vivid evocation of a vanished time and a study of the corrosive effects of fame on the overly proud Joe DiMaggio.

While Dom and Vince DiMaggio never measured up to the lofty achievements of Joe, both brothers were talented big leaguers in their own right. Dom was a borderline Hall of Famer for the Red Sox, one of the most graceful and beloved center fielders ever to play in Fenway Park. Vince, the eldest, was the first to try his hand at baseball, partly for his love and aptitude for the game, but also to escape the backbreaking labor of their father's fishing trade.

Clavin excels at portraying the generational tension between hardworking Giuseppe DiMaggio, an Italian immigrant plying his trade off Fisherman's Wharf, and his sons' seemingly lazy pursuit of making it in America through a "boy's game." Even more pointed is his depiction of Joe's increasing estrangement and isolation from his brothers as his fame swells. Throughout The DiMaggios, Dom emerges as the bigger man, the one who constantly brokers family feuds sparked by the proud and isolated Joe.

Clavin's effort in The DiMaggios is comparable to great baseball writers like David Halberstam, but it is also spot on in its depiction on the price of the American Dream and its attendant joys and sorrows. --Donald Powell, freelance writer

The pollock fishing industry in the Bering Sea yields more than a billion dollars' worth of fish each year--much of it headed for the frozen food sections of supermarkets or between fast-food sandwich buns. In Billion-Dollar Fish, biologist Kevin M. Bailey shows us how the story of the pollock is as much about fishing rights as about the science of fisheries. Still, "from the point of view of the fish," he notes, "the problem is not who catches them, but how many are caught."

For centuries, the lowly groundfish pollock had no market; it was merely "one of the best baits known for cod." But when the cod population dwindled, the relatively easy-to-catch pollock became a lucrative substitute--so much so that pollock fishing became the basis of international wrangling among the Japanese, Russians and Americans. It was also the source of ongoing political squabbles in the United States among large fishing companies, environmentalists, marine biologists and coastal communities. As Bailey points out, however, "biology is messy"--no branch of it more than the ecology of fisheries. How many fish are really in the sea? How many die off "naturally" and how many through fishing?

As Bailey blends science with competitive fighting over a substantial pile of money, he tells a pretty good story. Never boring or entangled in scientific jargon, Billion-Dollar Fish practically makes pollock fishing out to be The Old Man and the Sea. --Bruce Jacobs, founding partner, Watermark Books & Cafe, Wichita, Kan.

Dylan Dethier learned to play golf on a shoes-optional par 30 course near his grandparents' house on the Maine coast. Back in Massachusetts, he played on his high school team and got pretty good. He hatched a plan: after graduating, he'd hit the road for a year and play golf in each of the lower 48 states: "I would discover many different Americas and, eventually, find the way back to the heart of the game."

He sets up appointments with family, friends and acquaintances to play with--and stay with--then takes off in his Subaru for points west. His first course is Alder Creek, a "podunk two-buck municipal" in Boonville, N.Y.; in his experience, though, "rounds like this were the best kind." From there, it's off to Washington, racing against the cold and snow, a round at a great course in Michigan's upper peninsula, playing out of snow bunkers in Minnesota, the awesome courses at Oregon's Bandon Dunes, and a near-death experience on a cliff in Wyoming while hiking--along with lots of sleeping in the car, then sneaking into economy hotels for the free breakfasts.

Whether showering in truck stops, meeting Phil Mickelson and Michael Jordan, or playing at Sawgrass and Pebble Beach, the simple story of 18 in America is filled with youthful enthusiasm, honest and sincere. It's a lovely road story well told. --Tom Lavoie, former publisher

Winger is a classic coming-of-age story; readers will respond to its complete package of teenage hormones, first love and mischief.

Andrew W. Smith (The Marbury Lens) creates an appealing narrator: "Nothing could possibly suck worse than being a junior in high school, alone at the top of your class, and fourteen years old all at the same time." Ryan Dean attends the prestigious Pine Mountain school, lives in a dorm called Opportunity Hall with other wrongdoers, and plays rugby with his friends. Occasional black-and-white illustrations by Sam Bosma not only quickly acclimate readers to rugby, but also and more often to Ryan Dean's inner genius. This is Ryan Dean's make-it-or-break-it year to reinvent himself, or at least that's what 16-year-old Annie Altman says. Ryan Dean finds Annie "smoking hot in an alluring and mature, 'naughty babysitter' kind of way." She finds him "adorable." At first, the biggest obstacle in this no-way romance is their two-year age difference. All their incredible chemistry and hilarious banter may not be enough in the long run.

Smith's masterful narrative of the hormonal yet insightful teenage boy flows smoothly throughout the novel. Whether in service of Ryan Dean's emotional arc as he tries to get the girl, or smaller moments such as pep talks with his gay friend Joey, it's an unforgettable and unflaggingly appealing voice.

An unexpected tragedy awaits the hero, and while this heartbreaking scene may pain readers, they'll close this must-read book with a sense of hope. --Adam Silvera, Paper Lantern Lit marketing assistant and former bookseller

From the opening image of this intricate, nearly wordless book, readers see the animals--predator and prey together--moving toward safety. Thunderclouds pour rain down upon a valley where red barns stand in contrast to the green rolling hills.

Cutaway views reveal foxes nestling in dens below the road, as a family drives a red pickup hauling a flatbed of hay bales above. We follow the family past a silo, where a lightning bolt breaks a line carrying electricity. A caption tells readers that it's Saturday afternoon, July 15, at 12:15. Like a cameraman, Arthur Geisert (Country Road ABC; Ice) takes readers close up and also pans the valley to show the scope of the storm. Geisert's etchings fill in a rain so dense it feels as if we are looking out of a window at a deluge. Readers will pore over the many details included in cutaway views of the family's cupboards, walls and yards. The family also models safety measures. As they resume their hay bale deliveries and the storm gathers strength, they take cover under a stone bridge. By 6:15, the storm clears; the sun is out and neighbors are already gathering to repair the damage.

Geisert chronicles how quickly Nature can destroy, and also how rapidly humans rebound. His beautiful book is timeless. No matter how much technology we may develop, it can never compete with the power of nature, nor the power of a community to band together. --Jennifer M. Brown, children's editor, Shelf Awareness