Jessica Vye, a 12-year-old girl living in Yorkshire during World War Two, introduces herself on the first page of Jane Gardam's A Long Way from Verona by saying: "I ought to tell you from the beginning that I am not quite normal, having had a violent experience at the age of nine." That "experience" consisted of being told by a particularly revered author that she is a born writer, setting the stage for her future accomplishments. Jessica is doomed to be a truth-teller, no matter the cost. She is not well loved by her teachers, and even her friends despair of her, but she soldiers on, seeing matters clearly and saying so.

Issues of class arise when Jessica is invited to a "Children's House Party" at the rectory of a wealthy clergyman. The other guests are typical apple-cheeked, well-fed, pink and pompous English children who find Jessica, the daughter of a curate of very slender means, "gharsely." But the son of the household, an avowed Communist at 15, invites Jessica to visit an industrial town with him to see how bad things are. (She doesn't find it half bad, given her own circumstances.) By story's end, Jessica has learned how to be happy in the pursuit of one's art and is more clear-eyed and determined than ever. --Valerie Ryan, Cannon Beach Book Company, Ore.

When Jenny, a young bride planning her wedding on a budget, finds a beautiful vintage tea set at a car boot sale in Sussex, it's love at first sight. But two other women--Maggie, a florist and event planner, and Alison, a working mother running a small business out of her home--have also spotted it. Vanessa Greene's debut novel, The Vintage Teacup Club, takes its title from the women's agreement to share the set, creating a bond that changes all their lives.

As Jenny's wedding date draws near, she receives an unexpected message from the mother who abandoned her many years ago. Maggie's event business and flower shop are thriving, but the sudden reappearance of her charming ex-husband--right as she's planning the event of her career--throws her off balance. And while Alison adores her husband and two teenage daughters, she's feeling the strain of keeping her family afloat financially while he looks for work.

Greene weaves a heartwarming tale, alternating the three women's stories. An encounter with the tea set's original owners lends historical texture, while the characters' personal and financial struggles are convincing. Sweet and charming, The Vintage Teacup Club is best enjoyed with--what else?--freshly brewed tea sipped from a delicate (preferably antique) cup. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams

Roy Choi, the man who launched the food truck frenzy in Los Angeles, has penned a brash, bold and exciting new memoir that transcends his self-made legend to expose the city's culinary marvels. L.A. Son is the story of countless immigrant families, from a first-generation son in a family living a hardscrabble life as they work to realize the American dream. Choi, though, was born with sohn-maash, a culinary magic touch honed by his exposure to the ethnic flavors and textures of Los Angeles's giant melting pot.

A latchkey kid in a Korean household ruled by excesses of booze and dysfunction, Choi learned the art of the hustle early, soaking in the disparate cultures of rich and poor as his parents struggled to hawk their wares first as jewelry middlemen, then as restaurateurs, in downtown Los Angeles and Orange County. His lust for food was as big as his appetite for vice--gambling and drinking occupied equal space as his ascendancy up the corporate ladder in the financial world, his first real job post-college. While Choi's parents pulled him back from the brink each time, ultimately the Culinary Institute of America in New York saved him by giving "a restless kid from L.A. who had morphed into a thug who had become a chef who had cooked his way up a ladder, only to fall into the arms of the streets" a second chance. --Nancy Powell, freelance writer and technical consultant

In The Boy Detective, Roger Rosenblatt transforms a winter night's walk through the streets of New York City into a wide-ranging excursion into the territory of memory that invites comparison with Alfred Kazin's A Walker in the City. Following the tragedy-inspired memoirs Making Toast and Kayak Morning, this book allows Rosenblatt to showcase his capacious intellect and gift for wry humor.

Rosenblatt's childhood in an eight-room apartment just off Manhattan's Gramercy Park provides the rich lode of inspiration for the sometimes loosely connected musings that compose the book. In the 1940s and '50s, he embarked on "boyhood detecting prowls," fancying himself a junior Sherlock Holmes (with a dash of Sam Spade, Philip Marlowe and other literary detectives thrown in for good measure) as he tailed innocent citizens through his neighborhood. Repeatedly identifying an affinity between detective work and writing, Rosenblatt makes an intriguing case for a shared sympathy that links the professions: "Both see people for what they are," he writes, "judging privately, yet leaving cosmic judgment to others--perhaps the deepest sort of sympathy there is."

Ranging across decades of New York history, Rosenblatt is a knowledgeable and generous tour guide, pointing out the Gramercy Park connections of Herman Melville, Edith Wharton and Humphrey Bogart (and E.B. White's Stuart Little), as well as the nearby site of the original Madison Square Garden.

Memoir, urban travelogue or summing up of a career grounded in the written word, Roger Rosenblatt's The Boy Detective is an elegant and wise journey through an incomparable city and a meaning-filled life. --Harvey Freedenberg, attorney and freelance reviewer

Starting at Zero is the story of Jimi Hendrix in the legendary rock guitarist's own words. Compiled from interviews and the lyrical content of his songs by filmmaker Peter Neal, it offers a perspective on Hendrix rarely seen in books about superstars, an intimate portrait that reveals much more about his inner motivations than any historical biography.

Hendrix speaks of his life with a quiet grace that seems at odds with his noisy stage persona, beginning with his childhood in Seattle and his early love of poetry "mostly about flowers and nature and people wearing robes."

He took his band, the Jimi Hendrix Experience, to London in the mid-1960s, paying dues and earning a reputation for brilliant improvisation and musical talent. He also began to resent the fans who wanted him to do the same thing every night, smash his guitar over and over, play the same hits.

Soon, however, he becomes exhausted from touring, his words creating increasingly bizarre imagery, his songs turning trippy and vague. The last four years of his life are turbulent and confusing, as Hendrix retreats further into his music, his own solitude and--though never directly mentioned--drugs.

Starting at Zero is a beautiful tribute, all the more compelling for its lack of biographical or historical context. There are just the words of Jimi Hendrix, a brilliant and tragic guitarist with the soul of a poet. --Rob LeFebvre, freelance writer and editor

Doris Kearns Goodwin's The Bully Pulpit is about one of our most famous presidents--Theodore Roosevelt--and one of our least well-known--William Howard Taft--and their roles in a challenging and changing time in American history. Goodwin (Team of Rivals) focuses on the intense friendship between Roosevelt and his successor, which lasted until 1912, when they became bitter foes, both vying for the Republican presidential nomination. When Taft prevailed, Roosevelt chose to continue the fight as a third-party candidate, splitting the vote so that Democratic candidate Woodrow Wilson won the election.

Goodwin also traces the origins, growth and development of America's muckraking press and the dawn of the Progressive Era. At McClure's, one of the greatest magazine staffs in journalism's history--including Ida Tarbell, Ray Stannard Baker, Lincoln Steffens and William Allen White--wrote powerful exposés that paved the way for Roosevelt to stare down monopolies, robber barons and corrupt politicians. When Taft began diluting many of the reforms Roosevelt put in place, the reform-minded press was there to cover it all.

Deep and scholarly, with rich background and a plethora of historical minutiae, The Bully Pulpit is not a breezy read. Yet, as she has done so brilliantly in previous books, Goodwin makes the political machinations of American history interesting by focusing on the humanity of the larger-than-life figures at the heart of the story. --Jonathan Shipley, freelance writer

As you're reading Ann Patchett's nonfiction collection, This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage, don't be surprised if you have the sensation that instead of consuming words on a page, you're listening to your wisest, most humane friend.

As she reveals in "Nonfiction, an Introduction," Patchett "got her start in women's magazines," relying on her day job to pay the bills while she worked on her first novel. For that reason, she says, the 23 pieces in this collection are "full of example and advice." Those qualities are best revealed in "The Getaway Car," originally published as an exclusive for Byliner. Patchett's account of her fiction writing apprenticeship contains enough sound counsel in 40 pages to replace a good-sized shelf of instruction manuals. In the title essay, written as an audio piece for Audible, Patchett relates what she's learned about why marriages fail and succeed, contrasting her brief and disastrous first marriage with her current one--which came about after an unusual 11-year courtship.

Many readers of Shelf Awareness have warm feelings toward Patchett for her role in establishing the Nashville independent bookstore Parnassus Books in 2011. In "The Bookstore Strikes Back," she admits she's "dizzied by the blitheness that stood in place of any sort of business sense," but in the store's relatively brief life it's been a spectacular success, landing her on the front page of the New York Times and causing her to "inadvertently become the spokesperson for independent bookstores."

The Ann Patchett revealed in these pages feels deeply, remembers meticulously and moves gracefully through the journey that is life. We all can be thankful she's invited us along for the ride. --Harvey Freedenberg, attorney and freelance reviewer

John Sutherland (Lives of the Novelists) tackles an impressively broad subject in A Little History of Literature. Beginning with Homer and The Epic of Gilgamesh, Chaucer and Shakespeare, he hopes to instruct his reader in literature--what it is, where it's been and where it might be headed.

Sutherland takes us from a childhood of "reading... under the blanket, with a torch, after lights out," and the genesis of children's literature, through the modern developments that brought us Fifty Shades of Grey and genre divisions. Even as he recounts the historical details behind Beowulf or the birth of the King James Bible, he skips forward to reference current trends, markets and buying habits, relating them to centuries-old forces. Major works from many centuries are joined by digressions into the history of printing, of copyright and of books themselves.

Sutherland presupposes a certain background among his readers: "much of what many of us know about science comes from reading science fiction," for example, or his description of "many" or "most" children growing up reading at home. He also focuses, with few exceptions, on Western literature, although he does make a conscious effort to call attention to the role of women writers within that tradition. These issues aside, this slim book makes for a necessarily cursory review of literature's greats--and the loving treatment by an expert, presented in easily understood terms, will please both novices and established readers looking to dip back into well-loved works. --Julia Jenkins, librarian and blogger at pagesofjulia

Island of Fire, the third book in Lisa McMann’s planned series of seven, ignites even more challenges in her characters' war against imagination.

Fourteen-year-old Unwanted Alex Stowe and the rest of Artimé are reeling from the loss of Mr. Today, the mage who was killed at the hands of Alex’s twin brother, Aaron, in Island of Silence. Weeks have passed and Alex, as Artimé’s new leader, feels helpless, unable to provide food or protection--unless he can solve the cryptic spell left behind by Mr. Today. Meanwhile, in the antagonistic land of Quill, Aaron Stowe rises back to power and declares himself High Priest. While Aaron’s role isn’t quite as prominent in this installment, he still proves once again to be a complex and entertaining villain when he appears on the page. McMann alternates among many characters, including Unwanteds Lani and Samheed, who became voiceless hostages on the "strangely quite island" of the previous book.

After the magic-lite start, the author ramps up the fantasy with new spells, ships that steer themselves, and the volcanic Pirate Island to dazzle readers. Slight romance arises, but the real emotion of the novel comes through in Alex’s frustrations and drive to do right by the Artiméans. McMann continues to raise the stakes in this series without losing any steam. --Adam Silvera, reviewer and children’s bookseller