Michael Chabon's Telegraph Avenue is a love letter to Oakland, Calif., the scrappy, distinctive community adjacent to his Berkeley home. The central setting is Brokeland Records, a "church of vinyl" on the street that gives the novel its name. Co-owners Archy Stallings and Nat Jaffe, an often fractious pairing of black and white, find their business threatened by the impending construction of a "Dogpile Thang," an entertainment complex owned by Gibson Goode, a Magic Johnson-style ex-athlete and entrepreneur. Their wives, Gwen Shanks and Aviva Roth-Jaffe, are partners in a midwifery business, while Nate and Aviva's son, Julius, develops an intense attraction to 14-year-old Titus, the son Archy learns he has fathered when the boy returns to California after his mother dies.

Chabon is most intrigued by the daily struggles of these characters involving love, work and family, and he knits their lives together in a dense web of incident and reflection. There's an undercurrent of racial tension manifest in everything from Gwen's confrontation with a white physician after a near-disastrous home birth to the relationship between Titus and Julius.

Chabon's high-wire prose style is one of the novel's consistent pleasures, displayed most vividly in a single sentence that spans 12 pages, offering a literal bird's-eye view of the principal characters as they experience the "heartaches and sorrows of Telegraph Avenue." Whether it's classic jazz and blues, the world of blaxploitation films of the 1970s or the intimate details of childbirth, Chabon demonstrates command of an impressive array of subjects that gives the novel the feel of real life. --Harvey Freedenberg, attorney and freelance reviewer

Dora: A Headcase, Lidia Yuknavitch's first novel (after the memoir The Chronology of Water), is an inside-out retelling of Sigmund Freud's classic case study of "Dora," a Viennese teenager he diagnosed with hysteria. Yuknavitch transposes the patient to modern-day Seattle and outfits her with a shaved head, plaid miniskirt and a crew of badass, misfit friends. "You know what? Seventeen is no place to be," declares Ida, our modern-day Dora. She acts out. She gets high. Like the first Dora, intense emotions make her faint or lose her voice.

So Ida's parents send her to Seattle's top psychotherapist: Dr. Freud, whom Ida calls Sig. She has no patience for his brand of analysis: "Hello, won't you come in and let me explore your genitals by pretending to talk about your family origins," she scoffs. "What a load of crap." Ida's first line of defense against Sig's probing is her wit, but she's also got a millennial's flair for technology--and an audio recorder stashed in her repurposed Dora the Explorer purse.

Ida and her friends (including Obsidian, a gorgeous Native American girl whom Ida is in love with) are hyper-modern, overstimulated and misunderstood. "We live through sound and light--through our technologies," she explains. "With our parents' zombie life dope arsenal at our fingertips."

We know the original Dora (whose real name was Ida) only through Freud's analysis of her feelings and dreams. In Dora: A Headcase, Yuknavitch grants a perspective and a voice to the girl who lost both. --Hannah Calkins, blogger at Unpunished Vice

A Wanted Man is Lee Child's 17th novel starring retired military police officer Jack Reacher, who roams the country with a toothbrush in his pocket, defeating bullies, defending the weak, solving problems and charming women. Following on the action of Worth Dying For, Reacher is trying to hitch his way cross-country to find a woman whose voice attracts him from afar. But the driver and passengers in the car that picks him up are not what they seem. Soon, Reacher is pulled into a rural Nebraska murder investigation that somehow draws the interest of the FBI, the CIA and the State Department.

Beautiful and talented women, paramilitary threats, an unidentified murder victim, kidnappings, carjackings and a child at risk allow Child's hero to shine: Reacher knows to use his brains and investigative skills as well as his brawn and weapons training to overcome the enemy. His skill at arithmetic--what Reacher called in an earlier novel a "junior idiot savant" gift for numbers--is particularly useful here.

A Wanted Man delivers expertly paced building of tension, thrilling, full-throttle action and kick-butt fight scenes, all wrapped in a tautly structured mystery with military flavor and international implications. Fans love Reacher because he's smart, physically unbeatable and chivalrous, and here they'll find everything they've come to expect. Newcomers will have no problem joining mid-series; as usual, the hardest part is waiting for the next installment. --Julia Jenkins, librarian and blogger at Pages of Julia

Readers familiar with the private investigating team of Chet and Bernie will recognize the silhouette on the cover of Spencer Quinn's A Fistful of Collars as the collar-sporting Chet himself, the lovable, wily, brave, albeit unreliable, canine narrator of Quinn's previous four mysteries. Since 2009, when Quinn (aka thriller writer Peter Abrahams) introduced detective Bernie Little and his partner in Dog on It, the duo has cracked every case--but not, as Chet reminds us, without their share of bad breaks and close calls.

Chet isn't a talking dog, but a thinking narrator, so the reader sees the big picture even if Bernie doesn't. Chet is a devoted partner, and his instincts are sharp: he knows when to chomp on a perp, sniffs trouble from a mile away and has a knack for telling the good guys from the bad. This time, the trouble-prone movie star they're assigned to keep straight while he's filming in town leads them down shady alleys, into the desert and to more than one unsolved murder.

Chet's ingenuous black-and-white view of Bernie's goodness and criminals' evil ("He'll be smashing rocks in an orange jumpsuit at Northern State!") and his good humor will win reader loyalty long before he tracks down his first clue in Quinn's delightful buddy tale. While it cites characters and plots from earlier books, A Fistful of Collars will have no problem engaging and entertaining readers just discovering this series. --Cheryl Krocker McKeon, bookseller

Kij Johnson won the 2009 Nebula award for "Spar," an unrelenting tale about an astronaut trapped in an escape pod with an alien life form that blindly assaults her over and over. The following year, she won the prize again for "Ponies," which begins with the surface sweetness of little girls playing with cartoon-like horses before taking a sharp turn.

And then, the year after that, she received another Nebula for her novella "The Man Who Bridged the Mist." This story takes full advantage of its greater length, exploring the psyche of Kit, an architect sent to the remote end of an empire to build a bridge that will span a turbulent river of mist and monsters. Kit falls in love with Rasali, the woman who runs the main ferry connecting the towns of Nearside and Farside, even as he realizes that his bridge will make her job obsolete. The depth of Johnson's portrayal of their relationship is matched by her attention to the details of life in her fantasy kingdom.

Like these three, the other stories collected in At the Mouth of the River of Bees exhibit a captivating blend of psychological realism and hallucinatory vision, with animals often playing a central role.

Johnson shifts easily from domestic dramas ("The Bitey Cat") to conflicts on a vast alien landscape ("The Horse Raiders"), hitting many points in between. When she's at her best, the small emotional moments are as likely to linger in your memory as the fantastic imagery. --Ron Hogan, founder of Beatrice.com

Amanda Carlson sets the stakes high in her debut urban fantasy, Full Blooded: Jessica McClain isn't just the daughter of a werewolf pack leader; she's also the first woman to show lycanthropic tendencies since pretty much forever. Some of her father's enemies are already convinced Jessica is the "daughter of Cain" allegedly foretold to bring about the death of their race. Although her father tries to keep the news about her new powers from spreading, the rumors about her swiftly regain momentum. There are also serious non-supernatural concerns--after her first transformation, the local police want to know why her apartment looks like a wild animal tore it apart....

There's a lot going on here, and Carlson tries to cram as much of it as she can into this first installment of a new series, filling in the background to the supernatural setting as she goes along. As a result, things get very busy very fast--not only does Jessica have to worry about the rifts in her family's wolf pack, she also faces heat from a human police officer who's long been convinced there's something wrong about her. Romance arrives from a totally unexpected direction, but we barely have time to absorb this new development before the witches and the vampires get involved, kicking everything up another notch. Unfortunately, Carlson leaves the majority of these loose ends dangling with the novel's abrupt ending. It's a suspenseful setup for the sequel, but some may find the lack of even a tiny bit of closure frustrating. --Ron Hogan, founder of Beatrice.com

On November 4, 1979, six American diplomats managed to escape as militants stormed the U.S. embassy, taking the rest of the staff hostage for 444 days. Unbeknownst to most of the world, the six escapees spent more than two months as "house guests" of the Canadian ambassador, until the CIA was able to stage a risky rescue.

Antonio Mendez, one of the CIA's top "exfiltration" agents, came up with a bold plan, deciding that such an unprecedented rescue needed a daring cover. So with the help of real Hollywood producers, he created a fake science fiction movie called Argo, a hoax was so detailed it included a bogus ad in Variety. He and his team then created false documents for the six diplomats, making them appear to be a Canadian film crew scouting locations in Iran.

Next came the dangerous part: with the help of the Canadian government, Mendez and another CIA officer went into Iran, hoping to bring the rest of their "film crew" back with them.

Mendez (The Master of Disguise) puts the rescue mission in the context of the broader Iranian crisis, sharing details of the takeover and the American response--including CIA actions. The detail put into creating the Argo cover story is mindboggling. Argo is a mesmerizing book; a fast-paced, irresistible read that's equal parts politics, history and espionage. --Jessica Howard, blogger at Quirky Bookworm

David Byrne takes a brilliant insider's look at music in How Music Works. The former Talking Heads front man brings his singular intelligence to the topic, using his own background and extensive experience to illuminate the science, practice and meaning of one of our most human of behaviors.

Byrne discusses how technology has shaped modern pop music, starting with the wax cylinder recordings of the late 1800s and continuing on to the 1970s, when electronic instruments and digital recording technologies appeared. All of these advances shaped the way musicians created and preserved their music, which in turn changed the way music sounds. Byrne's point is that no music can exist separate from its own peculiar context, regardless of its genre or the period in which it was made.

How Music Works illuminates the inner workings of modern music, from Byrne's own experience of it. He spends a chapter discussing the fine details of recording contracts, how musicians make their money (hint: it's not records any more) and the different options upcoming artists have when pursuing a career in pop or rock music.

The joy of How Music Works comes from Byrne's straightforward, no-nonsense tone. He elucidates technology, history and autobiography equally well, telling his stories with wit and charm. Readers interested in Byrne, the modern music industry and music history in general will thoroughly enjoy this book. Creating music is what makes us human, Byrne argues, and he provides an unparalleled view of how we do so. --Rob LeFebvre, freelance writer and editor

In this action-packed sequel to The Unwanteds, Lisa McMann turns the tables on the once privileged Wanteds in favor of the Unwanteds.

Months following the deadly battle fought in the first book, the mage Mr. Today removes the gate that once separated Quill, a regulated land, from Artimé, home of creative innovators. This allows Quill's Wanteds and Necessaries a new way of life in a once-hidden world of choices, bright colors and wandering creatures. In Artimé, Mr. Today proposes to 14-year-old Alex Stowe that he train him to one day lead Artimé after he retires. Alex is hesitant to accept. "What if I don't want to have a lifelong battle with my brother?" Alex replies. Meanwhile, Alex's twin, Aaron, the prodigy Wanted, has been demoted after his leader was killed and he was banished from the university to live on the streets. Patiently he plots his return to power, recruiting Wanteds and Necessaries along the way.

Close to assuming leadership, Alex's impulse to trust all new residents of Artimé may prove to be his downfall when Aaron's spy joins Alex's close company. The island of silence plays its role, but Artimé remains center stage, ready for battle, each conflict more devastating than the last. The conflict plays out with new fatal spells and enough fire-breathing origami dragons to ignite the interest of Harry Potter fans.

As Aaron rises from his fall from grace, and Alex steps up as a leader, readers won't want to miss this heated battle. --Adam Silvera, former bookseller