In a short, parable-like style, Jamaican-born novelist Anthony Winkler reaches back to the 16th-century Spanish conquest of his homeland for God Carlos, a tale of the frequently tragic but also comic clash of races and religions.

The story begins in Cadiz, where Spanish sailor Carlos is hired by Alonso de la Serena, a Mallorcan captain and ship owner, to crew on the Santa Inez on a voyage to the West Indies, where he hopes to find gold and undiscovered lands to carry his name in cartographic immortality.

As the Spaniards set off for the "new world," a simple Jamaican man, Orocobix, carries his recently dead uncle to the tribal burial cave. Orocobix is special among the Arawak because he has met the white gods of Columbus's landing and tells stories of their power and immortality. When the Santa Inez arrives off the coast of Jamaica, it is Orocobix who paddles out alone to meet them and prostrate himself before the first white man he sees, the God Carlos. On an island without extremes of weather or local enemies and with abundant grains, fruits and fish, the peaceful Arawak live unashamedly naked.

Simple as Winkler's parable may sound, his narrative is rich in historical detail and he illustrates the epic forces behind the conquest of the Arawaks. He also guides us carefully through the daily routines of life aboard a 16th-century Spanish vessel. Details like his description of the jardines--seats hung over the rails for the men to relieve themselves--are downright fascinating. --Bruce Jacobs, founding partner, Watermark Books & Cafe, Wichita, Kan.

A fobbit, explains David Abrams's novel, is "a U.S. Army employee stationed at a Forward Operating Base, especially during Operation Iraqi Freedom." The environs of FOB Triumph are chaotic, but the Fobbits look forward to the seafood feast on Friday night, play games and watch DVDs, get it on in Porta Pottys and try not to think about the war going on outside. Fobbit is none-too-gentle satire, based on Abrams's own experiences in Iraq.

The heart of the book is Staff Sgt. Chance Gooding Jr., a public relations NCO who writes press releases, which, even as he puts the "right spin" on the bombing and street fighting, will be edited, re-edited and eviscerated until they bear no relationship to the events that made them necessary.

Then there's Captain Abe Shrinkle, a company commander with incredibly bad judgment, a hoarder with a trailer full of food and gifts from the folks back home. Mama's boy Eustace Harkleroad is a self-aggrandizing twit who writes home of his exploits--largely fabricated--and encourages Mama to leak them to the local papers.

In a particularly cynical passage, Abrams describes the media waiting for the body count to reach 2,000. Says Chance in his diary: "2,000 is a number most Americans can hold in their minds and use it to remember the awful waste of this war, this overlong field trip to the desert where we got ourselves tangled in a briar patch and stuck to the tar baby of terrorism." Abrams's tale is powerful stuff. --Valerie Ryan, Cannon Beach Book Company, Ore.

In this debut novel by Emma Straub (following the story collection Other People We Married), the stage is part of Elsa Emerson's life from an early age: her family owns a playhouse in a small town in 1920s Wisconsin. Every summer, tourists stay in the cabins and watch the shows. Elsa, age nine, sweeps up, hangs around and does whatever she can to stay close to the cast and crew.

When Elsa is old enough to star in a play, she falls for Gordon, marries him at 17 and they head for Los Angeles. She immediately becomes pregnant, so Gordon gets the acting jobs while Elsa stays home with the baby. Pregnant with her second child, she meets studio executive Irving Green at a party. He tells her to "have the baby, lose thirty pounds and come and see me." He changes blonde Wisconsin dairymaid Elsa Emerson into exotic brunette Laura Lamont. She divorces Gordon, becomes a star and marries Irving. Laura wins an Academy Award but is sidelined by another baby. Still, Laura is madly in love with Irving and her children, and all is well--until Irving's rheumatic heart gives out.

Combining opportunism, a great heart, an acceptance of the world as it is and a love of theater in whatever form, Laura is an irresistible heroine, sweet, willing to be sexy if need be, always game. At story's end, she has come full circle, except this time her stage is Broadway. --Valerie Ryan, Cannon Beach Book Company, Ore.

Dystopian novelists are often less interested in how the world fell apart than in exploring the grim, desolate landscapes left behind. John Varley (a multiple Hugo and Nebula award winner) has thought a lot about the early stages of collapse, though, and his precise details make Slow Apocalypse read like a play-by-play end times scenario.

Dave Marshall, a Hollywood screenwriter on a downward career slide, hears a wild story from a military adviser--what if a scientist created a bacterium that would render petroleum useless and unleashed it in the middle of Saudi Arabia's largest oil field? Even worse, what if that bacterium spread around the world? Dave soon realizes this isn't just a movie pitch, and he starts laying in canned goods and other survivalist gear, which aggravates an already tense situation with his wife. (His precocious 14-year-old daughter, though, is immediately on board.) Things get a little worse, but it might be just a particularly severe gas shortage... until the oil fields at the south end of Los Angeles explode.

From this point, Varley takes Dave and his family step by step through the disintegration of social order, with painstaking attention to the geography of L.A. and Orange County. There's a strong old-school Heinlein vibe to Slow Apocalypse, particularly in its emphasis on self-reliance and mistrust of authority figures. As Dave's world contracts to his wife, daughter and closest friends, and their search for even a slightly less worse off place in the world, Varley never loses sight of the ethical impulses behind the best parts of the human spirit. --Ron Hogan, founder of Beatrice.com

Linda Grimes's debut novel, In a Fix, is a fast-paced, riotous romp with a clever foundational concept. Aura adapting--a paranormal ability that lets the adapter assume the appearance of another person--can be a dangerous business, but Ciel Halligan is smart and capable enough to take over her clients' identities, solve their problems and collect her fee. If only she could convince the overprotective men in her life that she can take care of herself. Ciel's big brother, Thomas, their honorary "cousin" Billy, and Mark, Thomas's best friend and Ciel's long-time object of lust, all conspire to trail, guard and generally annoy her.

Ciel's latest assignment, convincing her client's boyfriend to propose, goes awry when a hulking group of modern Vikings blow up her resort bungalow and abduct the boyfriend. True to form, Billy and Mark both try to interfere with Ciel's efforts to retrieve her target. Aura adapters themselves, both men use their powers to save Ciel from herself and, in rakish Billy's case, to spy on her in the bath. Before Ciel can decide whether to risk her heart on Billy's roguish charms or take a shot at convincing Mark she's a grown woman, she finds herself right in the middle of the Vikings' plot. Can she save the day with only her wit, powers and sense of humor?

Snarky, strong-willed Ciel and her sexy male counterparts are sure to win a fan following with this first novel in a series. --Jaclyn Fulwood, blogger, Infinite Reads

In the future of The Rapture of the Nerds, it has been decades since the Singularity--a point in technological evolution where god-like artificial intelligence begets increasingly more advanced versions of itself--and most of humanity has transcended from their fleshy bodies into a "computronium cloud" crowding the inner solar system. Huw Jones lives among the other billion humans who remain earthbound in what amounts to a combination nature preserve and hedonistic paradise. Huw, however, is a technophobic misanthrope who shuns the surreality of transhuman daily life by working as a potter in the Welsh countryside. His relatively quiet life is upended by a summons to Tech Jury Duty, where citizens judge the worthiness and potential destructiveness of technology beamed down from the Cloud (also known as "god vomit").

Cory Doctorow (Makers) and Charles Stross (Rule 34) deliver science fiction humor at its best--hilariously absurd and more than a little thought provoking. Their collaboration is reminiscent of Douglas Adams's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, though far more vulgar. Nanobots redesign houses on a whim; bailiff-golems enforce order in a crazed reality TV star's courtroom; a holographic djinni in a teapot gives directions around Tripoli--and these are merely the tamest of Huw's wild encounters, which include an especially satisfying sequence among the petroleum purists and neo-Luddites of the hellish American "neverglades."

Doctorow and Stross do plenty of pandering to techies and trekkies, though readers without nerd credentials will still find amusement in this book's dry British humor, silly situations and high-tech speculation. --Tobias Mutter, freelance reviewer

Steven Rinella (American Buffalo) grew up hunting, trapping and fishing with his two older brothers. Hunting has played many roles in his life, from a source of income and food to a form of recreation and lifestyle. In a world that increasingly gets its meat from a supermarket, Rinella offers a passionate and reasoned ode to what he calls humankind's oldest endeavor.

In a series of vignettes, Rinella recounts experiences from childhood through parenthood. He relates the first buck he didn't get and the experience of trailing mountain lions in Arizona and Dall sheep in Alaska. He describes his first entrepreneurial scheme to trap small mammals and sell their fur, as well as a regretted dalliance with illegal hunting methods. He discusses hunters' ethics, the rules upon which they do not universally agree, and the idea of "fair chase." Occasionally, he offers tasting notes on various animals' flesh, which may be useful to his fellow hunters along with his instructions on preparation--they may also help non-hunters understand the appeal of eating, say, squirrel (not to mention "camp meat").

"Hunting stories are the oldest and most widespread form of story on earth," Rinella observes; thus historical anecdotes about Daniel Boone and early hunter-gatherers accompany him in his evolution from hunting for fun and profit to hunting as a way to feed his own family efficiently and mindfully. Meat Eater is a book for the nature lover or the hunter as well as the uninitiated. --Julia Jenkins, librarian and blogger at pagesofjulia

Louise Penny ventures out of Three Pines in The Beautiful Mystery, her eighth novel featuring Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, but the change of setting doesn't faze Ralph Cosham, the narrator of many of the audiobooks in the series. Cosham's approach enhances the reverent tone while still plucking Penny's ripe humor from the vines that weave their ways throughout the dark plot. Penny has a gift with dialogue, and Cosham makes that gift pop for the audience.

Gamache and Inspector Jean-Guy Beauvoir go where no layman has before: the monastery of Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups. The monks are famous for singing Gregorian chants, and while Penny does not write much for Cosham to sing, what he does harmonize is rich and soothing, an earworm listeners won't mind having stuck in their heads.

The French words and phrases peppered throughout the narrative roll flawlessly off Cosham's tongue, and he translates the starkly differing emotional effects of seclusion on each of Penny's main characters: Gamache is cloaked in wonderment; he finds freedom and release through introspection, connecting with his soul. Beauvoir, on the other hand, suffocates, slowly choking away his sanity.

The "Beautiful Mystery" from which this novel derives its name is the allure of the Gregorian chants. But there is no mystery about the allure of Louise Penny's series or the beauty with which Ralph Cosham continues to narrate it. This is a series that should be experienced at least once on audio, and The Beautiful Mystery is the perfect choice. --Jen Forbus of Jen's Book Thoughts

In Sharon Cameron's debut novel, international intrigue in 1850s England is the backdrop for 17-year-old Katharine Tulman's discovery of a host of family secrets. Gifted with numbers, Katharine slaves away for her odious aunt and cousin, keeping their books and managing their servants. When her aunt sends her off to have her (very rich) Uncle Tulman declared insane, there's a silver lining for her: if she can keep her position as overseer of cousin Robert's books, she'll be able to maintain some control over her life.

The situation becomes complicated almost as soon as she arrives at Stranwyne Keep. Katharine's uncle, clearly unbalanced and sometimes childlike in his behavior, is also brilliant. His elaborate projects and contraptions require a whole village to make and maintain them--a village full of refugees from workhouses. As Katharine falls in love with the place, she also fears for her own sanity. Troubled dreams and sleepwalking incidences lead her to believe she might share more with her uncle than she'd care to admit. Moreover, there's foul play at work, and the source may go as far up as the French court.

Cameron's endearing heroine is cut from strong cloth. She must make hard choices and face uncomfortable truths as she's swept up in a sweet love story and the adventure of a lifetime. The author captures the tenor of 1850s England without belaboring her setting, providing a vivid background against which her characters can shine. --Jenn Northington, events manager at WORD bookstore

Chuck Close's honest, personal memoir about his life and work makes an ideal book for kids who find school challenging, who are creative or who see the world a bit differently from their peers. In other words, this one's for most everyone.

Close describes his road to becoming an artist as one of necessity. As a dyslexic student who also struggled with math and with memorizing names and dates, he found a way to master the material. For instance, he made a 10-foot-long illustrated map of Lewis and Clark's expedition for history class. "Art was what I did to convince others that I was interested in school," Close writes. "It was what I did to feel good about myself." His best-known paintings also resulted from Close's desire to surmount a challenge. He suffers from prosopagnosia, or face blindness: "But if I can flatten someone's face, I have a much better sense of what he or she looks like." He takes a photograph of his subject, and his portraits distill those photographs into grids comprised of tiny squares.

Step by step, Close describes his process of painting a face square by square. The question-and-answer format of the book also reflects Close's learning style. The book's brilliant centerpiece consists of a series of overlays: his self-portraits, divided into thirds, line up precisely, forehead to forehead, chin to chin. It illustrates the importance of those small squares, the difference between a horizontal/vertical grid versus a diagonal grid, the effect of watercolors or woodcuts on a mood. A winner. --Jennifer M. Brown, children's editor, Shelf Awareness