Lisa Beazley draws a keen-eyed, entertaining portrait of sisterhood in the age of social media in her debut novel, Keep Me Posted. Cassie and Sid Sunday have always adored one another, but they've grown apart in recent years. Sid is living the glamorous expat life in Singapore, while Cassie struggles to find a moment of peace as a New York City-dwelling mom of twins. Over Christmas at their parents' house, they make a pact to reconnect by exchanging snail-mail letters for a year.

Narrated by Cassie, the book intersperses letters written by both sisters with scenes from Cassie's increasingly harried life in Manhattan. Thrilled by her sense of renewed closeness to Sid and pleased to have a project, Cassie scans the letters onto her computer to save them for posterity. But when a technical glitch causes the letters to end up on the Internet, the sisters' relationship, and other aspects of their lives, may be in serious jeopardy.

Beazley's breezy, welcoming writing style draws readers right in, and her evocation of the bond between Sid and Cassie--occasionally competitive, but never catty--rings true. As the fault lines in Sid's marriage begin to show, and Cassie admits her frustrations with the life she has fought so hard to build, the sisters must put aside their embarrassment at being publicly exposed and figure out how to help each other move forward.

Warmhearted, insightful and often funny, Keep Me Posted is a tribute to sisterhood, forgiveness and the power of a handwritten letter. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams

In Alice & Oliver, Charles Bock (Beautiful Children) draws on the experience of his late wife's battle with leukemia to create an intensely realistic and harrowing portrayal of a young woman's desperate fight for life against a relentless disease.

On the way from her New York City home to an idyllic family Thanksgiving in Vermont in 1993, with her husband, Oliver, and infant daughter, Doe, fashion designer Alice Culvert nearly succumbs to a pneumonia-like illness. After serious but less dire conditions are ruled out, a diagnosis of acute myeloid leukemia follows and the family embarks on what one of Alice's doctors calls the "marathon of sprints" that will be their reality for the next year.

But Bock's novel is more than a chronicle of cancer's ravages and the battle against it. Oliver is a software developer who is racing to finish a word-processing program he hopes will save his fledgling company. A rationalist who's skeptical of Alice's exploration of Eastern religion and her resort to alternative therapies as an adjunct to conventional treatment, he makes a foolhardy choice that threatens to undermine his marriage. This depiction of a relationship in crisis is every bit as taut and unpredictable as the medical drama in the novel's foreground.

In this vivid novel, Charles Bock takes readers on a journey that never moves far beyond the confines of an Upper East Side hospital and a loft in the Meatpacking District, and yet it encompasses a world. --Harvey Freedenberg, attorney and freelance reviewer

With good humor, plenty of science, scattered literary allusions and the occasional sarcastic zinger, Hope Jahren's Lab Girl is the sublime memoir of a plant research scientist and her struggles to find professional success, love and family.

After earning her Ph.D. from UC Berkeley, she grabbed a rare assistant professor opportunity at Georgia Tech and, with her lab tech sidekick, Bill, moved to the fertile ecology of the South. With only a start-up financial commitment from the university, she and Bill cobbled together a science lab out of flea market odds and ends. Bill lived in his van as Jahren feverishly applied for federal research grants. The rest, as they say, is history: three Fulbright awards, numerous publications, several outstanding scientist and teacher awards, a world-class lab and tenured professorship at the University of Hawaii, and a devoted mathematician husband and baseball-crazed son--with the eccentric, foul-mouthed, patient, chain-smoking and ingenious Bill at her side all the way.

Jahren and Bill banter about broken cordless drills, experiments gone bad and poorly written grad student theses (one of which she compares with "the famous 'Lucky's Think' monologue in Waiting for Godot"). Jahren emerges as a smart, practical, good-hearted woman who loves her work and also finds joy in her husband, young son and best friend, Bill. She eventually realizes that after years of "trying to make my life into something... all the truly valuable pieces fall from the sky undeserved. I used to pray to be made stronger; now I pray to be made grateful." --Bruce Jacobs, founding partner, Watermark Books & Cafe, Wichita, Kan.

Simon Callow's Orson Welles, Volume 3: One-Man Band is the penultimate volume in his magnificent epic biography of the Academy Award-winning international filmmaker, covering his prolific years of 1947-1964. During this period, Welles directed five films (Touch of Evil, Othello, Mr. Arkadin, The Trial and Chimes at Midnight), wrote, helmed or starred in seven stage productions (which included directing Laurence Olivier in the acrimonious production of Eugene Ionesco's Rhinoceros) and acted in more than three dozen films (including The Third Man, Moby Dick, King Lear, The Long, Hot Summer, Compulsion and The V.I.P.s). He also married his third wife, fathered his third daughter and burned a lot of bridges in Hollywood.

Actor, director and biographer Callow (Charles Laughton: A Difficult Actor) writes with energy, fluidity and the astute knowledge of an industry insider and historian. While Callow has great admiration for the filmmaker, he is not blind to Welles's excesses, ego, volcanic rages and his constant need for new stimulation that often left projects abandoned in the hands of others--whom he would later rail against for destroying his work. As Eartha Kitt observed, "If one was not quick enough, Orson lost patience."

Three volumes in, Welles (1915-1985) continues to be a ceaselessly fascinating subject--an artist with unbridled enthusiasm and creativity for his projects, who could not abide any form of constraint or interference. Callow's insightful, analytical and entertaining biography captures the magic and mania of Orson Welles and his work. --Kevin Howell, independent reviewer and marketing consultant

Love That Boy: What Two Presidents, Eight Road Trips, and My Son Taught Me About a Parent's Expectations offers many things: memoir, parenting advice, meditations on Asperger's Syndrome and even short discursions into the lives and personalities of various presidents. In other words, Love That Boy is not the straightforward narrative one might expect from Ron Fournier, an experienced journalist who's covered multiple presidents for the Associated Press. Instead, Fournier has written a searching, introspective book that examines his relationship with his son Tyler, diagnosed at an early age with Asperger's.

Fournier presents himself in a surprisingly unforgiving light when he regretfully recalls how his workaholic tendencies combined with the requirements of his profession led him to leave his family for lengthy periods. These bouts of self-criticism, as well as the exhortations of his wife, Lori, lead Fournier to the conceit of the book: so-called "guilt trips" where he would use his professional connections to take Tyler to various historical sites dedicated to deceased presidents as well as meetings with Presidents Clinton, Bush and Obama.

Love That Boy starts in a very personal place, expanding its scope as it goes along. By the time it reaches the point of broad policy proposals and sweeping parenting advice, Fournier's insights feel earned and evidence-based. Love That Boy presents a particular story about Tyler and a universal story about parenthood--its conclusions are born out of this moving interaction between personal experience and time-honored truths. Love That Boy is a must-read for parents and the parented. --Hank Stephenson, bookseller, Flyleaf Books

Less a biography than an analysis of James Brown's cultural legacy, Kill 'Em and Leave: Searching for James Brown and the American Soul is reflective and fascinating. As a child, James McBride's family lived across the tracks from Brown's home in Queens, N.Y. McBride's youngest sister braved the singer's front steps to knock on the door, something no other kid ever had the courage to do. Brown stepped onto the porch to greet her and said, "Stay in school, Dotty. Don't be no fool!"

Brown's message never changed: stay in school, work hard, be proud of who you are. McBride (The Good Lord Bird; The Color of Water) details how the Godfather of Soul's significance as a successful African American entertainer and singer has no analogue. In addition to a profound influence on American music and culture, Brown left his considerable wealth to poor children in Georgia and South Carolina (although in the 10 years since his death, none of it has gone anywhere but into the pockets of lawyers hired by Brown's family to contest his largesse).

Kill 'Em and Leave also looks at what's left of James Brown's non-financial legacy via a sort of travelogue, with author, musician and educator McBride's informed commentary about environments that shaped Brown's life. It's impossible to separate McBride's own experience from the story he tells, and the book is all the better for it. This is an insider's look at the racial, musical and cultural effects of the supreme force of will that James Brown brought to every endeavor he was involved in, from the deep South to New York City. --Rob LeFebvre, freelance writer and editor

In all of Newbery Medalist Kate DiCamillo's middle-grade fiction (Flora & Ulysses; The Tale of Despereaux), the emotional undercurrent carries the story. In Raymie Nightingale--the author's most autobiographical novel to date--it's 10-year-old Raymie Clarke's determination to bring her errant dad back home.

Her plan is to win the Little Miss Central Florida Tire contest, because if she does, her father will see a photograph of her newly crowned self in the newspaper and come running. In baton-twirling class, Raymie meets two future contest competitors: the gruff Beverly Tapinski, who is not to be messed with, and the dreamy Louisiana Elefante, who is sick with "swampy lungs" but sings like an angel, especially the song "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head." (This is the summer of 1975.) By the time the Little Miss contest takes place, Raymie Nightingale has become the buoyant, poignant story of how these three heavy-hearted girls band together to help each other with their respective, ever-evolving missions. DiCamillo's fabulous cast of eccentric characters--including Mrs. Sylvester, who talks like a cartoon bird and believes in the power of candy corn, feeding swans and happy endings--makes for a hugely entertaining parade.

From start to finish, Raymie feels her soul alternately shrinking and expanding like an indecisive balloon as she and her new entourage navigate the waters of friendship and heartbreak, love and loss, life and death. Most of the characters in this fine, funny, meticulously crafted novel live life "wishing for things that are gone," but there's certainly no chance that Raymie's lovely and large soul will ever shrink for long. --Karin Snelson, children's & YA editor, Shelf Awareness

The age-old tattoo tradition is loud and proud in modern American culture, and in Alison McGhee's (Firefly Hollow; Bink and Gollie: Two for One) picture book Tell Me a Tattoo Story, a young boy asks his father, once again, to share the stories behind his ink.

Dad's intricate, delicately wrought tattoos embody major touchstones in his life: his loving parents, meeting his wife, his military service, the birth of his son. He tells the inquisitive boy the stories, tattoo by tattoo, through bath time and all the way to bedtime. The mountain dragon inked on his father's shoulder is from a favorite childhood book. Eliza Wheeler (Miss Maple's Seeds) illustrates the story behind the dragon tattoo with a cozy, golden-hued scene of the father's mother reading out loud from The Ho----. (The title is cut off, but bets are on The Hobbit.) The upper-arm tattoo of fireworks and a Ferris wheel reminds his dad of a pretty girl: "Have you ever met her? You sure have." (It's the boy's mother, whom his father met when she was waiting tables at the Café de l'amour.) Wheeler uses India ink with dip pens and watercolors to make the tattoos spring to life, just as the affection and memories behind the tattoos live and breathe for the boy. Tattoos of ships, dragons, skulls, hearts, waves, fish, fields, keys and numbers combine in a magical jumble on the endpapers.

Tell Me a Tattoo Story is a tale of love and ink and the staying power that both promise. --Karin Snelson, children's & YA editor, Shelf Awareness