When Wallace Webster is eased out of his partnership at a Houston design firm, he's at an awkward age--too young to pack it in, too old to start over. His response is to retreat to his condominium in a "spectacularly kitschy" Gulf Coast town. The nearly constant presence of attractive women in his life--from his platonic relationship with Jilly, a coworker only slightly older than his daughter, to his fitful affair with Chantal White, a sexy restaurant owner with a dark past--somehow fails to brighten his mood.

Life at Forgetful Bay Condominiums is anything but placid. One resident dies in a car crash, and Chantal is tied up by an intruder who covers her with blue paint. That's only in the novel's first 15 pages, before the mass mailbox thefts, the nude dancer in the driveway of the homeowners' association president and a suicide. One can only imagine the residents' dismay at what a character calls an "appalling parade of unlikely events." The bizarre happenings at the sleepy condos highlight the disconnection from neighbors that's become one of the defining characteristics of modern life. More than that, Frederick Barthelme (Waveland) suggests, is how unknowable, and truly strange, the lives of others often are.

Even as Wallace leads a life that can be described only as adrift, he never wanders off onto irony's seductive path. There Must Be Some Mistake might have foundered in a sea of cynicism, but in the end Barthelme manages to salvage something that looks suspiciously like a glimmer of hope. --Harvey Freedenberg, attorney and freelance reviewer

For centuries, Carrara marble has been associated with opulence and beauty. Quarried from the mountains of northwest Italy, it is the raw material of the world's finest architecture and sculpture. "Michelangelo's mountains" are at the center of The Figures of Beauty, David Macfarlane's ambitious novel of fateful connections--and missed connections--across continents, classes and generations. It is primarily the story of Italian sculptor Anna Di Castello and Oliver Hughson, the adopted son of Canadian schoolteachers. Oliver, a young, Rilke-reading, straight-laced man from small-town Ontario, falls for Anna, an older Italian artist who smokes a spliff with her morning coffee, swears like a stone cutter and enjoys lusty mountainside sex. After four months of bliss, the cautious Oliver returns to Canada, leaving behind Anna--and, to his later surprise, a daughter.

Giller Prize finalist Macfarlane (Summer Gone) is interested in much more than a coming-of-age romance in Tuscany, however. Narrated by Oliver and Anna's child, The Figures of Beauty traces the history of Carrara marble and the dangers of its mining; the challenges faced by artists like Michelangelo who attempt to chisel delicate curves from the hard, white stone; the provincial limitations of rural Canada; and the basic human need to connect with family and community. Nonetheless, it is the brief romance that drives the narrative. As Oliver writes to his newfound daughter, "I only made one serious mistake in my life…it is up to all of us to know what we most love... youth is no excuse for turning away from it...we cannot always be reasonable." --Bruce Jacobs, founding partner Watermark Books & Cafe, Wichita, Kansas.

Acclaimed nature writer, essayist and novelist (Children Are Diamonds) Edward Hoagland has also written some fine short stories. Thanks to The Devil's Tub, readers can now enjoy 10 specimens of his short fiction previously left languishing (some for more than 50 years) in the back issues of such magazines as the New Yorker and Esquire.

Prior to attending college, Hoagland worked at a circus for two summers, and three of these tales draw on those years; the best of them shares its title with the collection. The "devil's tub" (or Wall of Death) was known to attendees of fairs and carnivals of yore as a rickety, cylindrical wooden "tub" that motorcyclists nosily and speedily circumnavigated. Jake "Pappy" Thibodeau "occupied the saddle of a cycle as another man might loaf in an easy chair." Now in his 50s and weary from years of risking his life, his trip is winding down. It's a poignant, tour-de-force portrait of a man, his family and the world of sideshows and carnies.

"Circus Dawn" also captures carnival life as it tells the story of Chief and Fiddler, caretakers of the big cats. Animals feature prominently in Hoagland's stories beyond the big top as well. In "The Final Fate of the Alligators," Arnie Bush kept a pet alligator in his New York City apartment, but it has outgrown the bathtub. Now what? From a lonely man looking for love at Coney Island to a man who hides from a grizzly bear in a beaver's dam, "desperate as a hooked fish," Hoagland's characters are always sympathetic, decent people, memorably drawn. --Tom Lavoie, former publisher

In 1999, a rowdy college student from Kansas burst onto the contemporary Christian music scene to win Nashville's prestigious Dove Award for New Artist of the Year. Jennifer Knapp's guitar rock grafted into the growing renaissance of gospel music, offering an alternative to mainstream music for Evangelical youth. After three more years and two more albums, however, a burnt-out Knapp--decorated with chart-toppers, Dove Awards and Grammy nominations but frustrated by moralism and hypocrisy--walked away from the business with a firestorm of speculation burning behind her.

Facing the Music is Knapp's introspective, touching account of her volatile upbringing, self-destructive youth, humble Christian conversion and runaway stardom. She elaborates on her musical hiatus, reconciliation with her sexuality and her very public coming-out as a lesbian. While unabashedly honest, Knapp offers past antagonists grace by focusing more on her own internal struggles. Few names are dropped; one standout, however, is Katy Hudson, a young musician Knapp mentored while they toured together. (She goes by Katy Perry now.)

Knapp stays the swirl of gossip that has plagued her career without being vituperative. Her 2010 comeback album, Letting Go, added a new dimension to her work: she began presenting Inside Out Faith, events meant to establish room for LGBT people of faith to tell their stories. Whether her music is a touchstone for the reader or not, her journey is one of hope, resilience, passion and faith. Much may have changed since she entered the limelight, but Knapp powerfully expresses the importance of standing for what you believe. --Dave Wheeler, publishing assistant, Shelf Awareness

Every day, 10,000 baby boomers turn 65. In Conscious Living, Conscious Aging, Ron Pevny provides concrete ways to make retirement an even more meaningful time than the years that came before, persuading readers that fulfilling emotional and spiritual needs is as important as tending to physical and financial security.

During his 50s, several events turned Pevny's focus toward "conscious aging," especially a request to create a program to help with the rite of passage into "sage-hood" and a heart arrhythmia caused by a tumor in his lung. The health crisis provided a sense of urgency and led him to found the Center for Conscious Eldering in Durango, Colo.

Pevny believes aging can accentuate the best or the worst in an individual, and aims to help readers clarify their purpose in order to live with intention rather than simply out of habit. Throughout, Pevny draws on well-established archetypes from Joseph Campbell and Carl Jung, and each chapter focuses on a different way of starting this journey: experiencing nature, resolving regrets, asking for and accepting forgiveness, releasing the past, building a legacy and so on. At the end of each chapter, Pevny includes a "Story by the Fire," highlighting how a person successfully navigated the transition to retirement. In addition, concrete exercises and recommended resources guide readers to continue down the path begun with this book, which Pevny proposes is "not another academic work. Instead, I hope to offer you a guidebook to support your journey toward conscious elderhood." --Kristen Galles from Book Club Classics

Margaret Webb (Apples to Oysters) was a successful young athlete and an active adult, but never suspected she might be a marathoner. Staring down her 50th birthday, she became curious about what she could accomplish. She knew there were competitive women runners several decades her senior; could she join their ranks? Older, Faster, Stronger covers what Webb calls her "super-fit year." And as her subtitle states, the lessons she shares are valuable for men and women of all ages, in any sport.

With the luxury of being able to devote her time and energy primarily to training, Webb engages expert nutritionists, personal trainers, coaches, sports psychologists, aging specialists, physiologists and laboratory researchers. She has her maximal oxygen consumption tested (twice); adds cross-training, gym time and track workouts to her running schedule; travels; and brunches with world champion septua-, octo- and nonagenarian women. She sets goals: to qualify for the Boston Marathon under the fastest women's standard (the qualifying time for 18-to-34-year-old women) and to be competitive in the half-marathon at the World Masters Games.

Webb is meticulous in applying her results stringently to her own life and documenting them for her readers. Her research appears thorough, although the more fastidious reader may be frustrated by the absence of citations. Older, Faster, Stronger is packed with statistics and studies, but is well explained, so the reader will find the science easily digestible. Athletes of any sex, age and discipline can benefit from--and be entertained by--Webb's approachable investigation of becoming faster and stronger into advance age. --Julia Jenkins, librarian and blogger at pagesofjulia

Miracle Dogs, which combines Liz Stavrinides's professional career as a photographer with her personal passion for animals, is a testament to the healing powers of canine companionship for both dog and human--and the perfect gift for any dog lover. Stavrinides shares the stories of 50 families who rescued dogs from shelters, the streets, the sea and even the AKC show world, including celebrity pet owners like Chevy Chase and his golden Labradors, Chris and Cody; Hoda Kotb and her cockapoo, Blake Charlie; Jamie-Lynn Sigler and her Havanese/terrier mix, Bean; and Lance Bass and his Australian shepherd/beagle mixes, Lily, Foster and Dingo. But the majority of the entries are about people who are stars only in the eyes of their pups.

Most of the stories are unequivocally positive, but some of the striking ones involve dogs with special needs who required incredible dedication to heal, like Jax, a spaniel/dachshund mix that needed spinal surgery and now runs four miles a day with the help of cart, or Princess Fiona, a poodle mix that required a lens implant in order to see. Anyone who has experienced the world of animal rescue knows that while this vocation reinforces how resilient, forgiving and extraordinary dogs are, at times our regard of humanity drops precipitously. However, Miracle Dogs is not only a celebration of the goodness of canines, but a reminder of the many kind-hearted people in the world, too. A box of tissues is mandatory while reading Miracle Dogs, but the tears are nearly always happy. --Kristen Galles from Book Club Classics

Tattoos themselves, whether the art is visible or not, are commonplace enough, but we seldom hear the stories that inspired them. For Pen & Ink, Isaac Fitzgerald, BuzzFeed Books editor and co-owner of The Rumpus, collaborated with illustrator Wendy MacNaughton to give us exactly what we wonder about every time we see a stranger's interesting body art.

That isn't to say everyone in here is a stranger: there are literary marvels Cheryl Strayed and Roxane Gay, former gang leader Raymond "Shrimp Boy" Chow, illustrator Carson Ellis and more. The tattoos and their stories are as often delightful as they are heartrending. Most succinct is the text from warehouse manager Siobhan Barry, whose toes read pizza party. "I really f*cking love pizza," she explains. Other stories are much more involved. Writer and public speaker Mona Eltahawy had Sekhmet, Egyptian goddess of retribution and sex, tattooed on her wrist after her capture and violent interrogation while on assignment in Egypt, "to both celebrate my survival and make a mark on my body of my own choosing."

Beautifully illustrated, Pen & Ink pairs stories with 4-color drawn facsimiles of the tattoos. It is more than a keepsake for tattoo enthusiasts; it is an artifact of diverse, deeply human histories, like the cave paintings of Lascaux or an illuminated manuscript, a compilation of intimate knowledge we can only hope to see continued in the future. --Dave Wheeler, publishing assistant, Shelf Awareness

National Book Award–winner Katheryn Erskine (Mockingbird) again displays her skill at telling a story through a narrator's particular perspective.

In his first-person account, Adrian explains that he's nicknamed "the Badger" because of his pale, ghostlike appearance and tendency to smudge his eyes to cut the glare from his light skin. At 12, he is small and sickly, and generally not well regarded in his village: "A few people say being tiny and white as an angel is a good omen, but far more say I'm evil." Readers will recognize his dream of becoming an archer and famous knight as unrealistic. Invading Scots threaten the lives of those in 1346 England. War entices Badger with thoughts of escaping the farm and becoming a hero, but when he follows his best friend, Hugh, to battle, he learns peril is not reserved for the battlefield alone: his journey is fraught with more danger and adventure than he'd imagined possible. Badger discovers a world in which truth is not black or white, but instead rather like his smudged face: "I think of what I always believed to be truths... and how all these 'truths' aren't real at all."

Adrian compensates for his feelings of insecurity with his Badger persona, which gives him strength. His story remains the journey of all children who struggle to find their place in the world. The vocabulary-dense historical setting may be challenging for new chapter book readers, but those willing to use the book's glossary will be rewarded with a rich medieval tale. --Jessica Bushore, former public librarian and freelance writer