Poet Alan Michael Parker (Cry Uncle) has concocted a piece of surrealist Americana with a strongly postmodern sensibility. As hinted at by the title, The Committee on Town Happiness is an unusual narrative structured as a series of minutes from the meetings of a group that claims to be that curious municipal body. If the committee is to be believed, the town is an idyllic slice of small-town America--full of well-regulated food trucks, scenic hot-air-balloon rides and a tight-knit community of "Like-Minded Individuals."

It's clear from the opening lines that the town and the committee are not at all what they claim to be: "We have been thinking about the trees. The trees, we have decided, know what they're doing. We have decided (6-3, with one abstention) that there will be trees in the Afterlife." The committee is a micromanaging superego, prone to awarding arbitrary values to everything and anything. "Daily joy, 3. Lurking suspicions, 3. Moderation, 4. Finicky responses to stimuli, 4. Faith in the Committee on Town Happiness, n/a." It slowly comes to light that a group known as Danger for Fun, the town's uncontrollable id, is threatening to bring their carefully constructed system tumbling down. Or perhaps Danger for Fun is an invention of the Committee itself, an enemy constructed to distract attention from the terrifying, constantly encroaching Edge of Town and the void beyond.

The social commentary is occasionally heavy-handed, but the book is strongest when Parker lets his dry wit shine. The Committee on Town Happiness is crisply surreal, an odd little experiment that succeeds in spite of itself. --Emma Page, bookseller at Wellesley Books in Wellesley, Mass.

Several decades in the future, a special project is formed with a singular goal: "to better understand the scope of the silent phenomenon." The subjects of the study are "silents"--multitudes of people who've been born unable to process language. By collecting accounts from parents, doctors, spiritual gurus and others who have come into contact with silents, the project is confronted with wildly contrasting theories as to what has caused the condition and how society should respond. These testimonials form The Silent History, a collaboration between Eli Horowitz, former publisher of McSweeney's, and novelists Matthew Derby and Kevin Moffett.

Originally serialized through an Apple iOS app, the novel was released in weekly segments between October 1, 2012, and April 19, 2013. A bold, experimental work of literary fiction, it has been reedited for the paperback edition.

Though each statement is no longer than a few pages, the speakers' personalities are remarkably dynamic--so much so that when they reappear much later in the novel, their voices are instantly recognizable. These testimonials are also disturbing, describing children met with harsh discrimination (called everything from "zombie" to "mutetard"), families haunted by confusion and guilt, and teachers straining to interpret their students' pain. More than anything, they are unnervingly philosophical. After years of researching the silents, the project's director wonders, "Are there wilder, more verdant fields out beyond the boundaries of language, where those of us who are silent now wander?" Such questions possess a sense of urgency that reaches beyond the confines of this intriguing fictional world. --Annie Atherton

Emma Healey's dark, suspenseful debut pits an unusual sleuth against a mystery more than half a century old.

Octogenarian Maud Horsham's memories are slipping away. She copes with the help of part-time caregivers, handwritten notes and her daughter, Helen (who resents her brother, Peter, for not sharing the burden). Lately, Maud has grown convinced that her close friend Elizabeth has gone missing, but no one takes her concerns seriously. She tries to discover Elizabeth's whereabouts on her own, but as her grip on reality weakens, Maud's mind presents her instead with clues to the disappearance of her big sister, Sukey, shortly after World War II, when Maud was still a child. Even as Maud forgets the word "cup," her brain dredges up crystal-clear memories of beautiful Sukey, Sukey's handsome but jealous husband, Frank, and the mysterious "mad woman" who haunted their neighborhood.

Healey's bold decision to tell the story in Maud's voice pays off with a convincing and frightening descent into dementia. The suspense comes less from the mystery and more from the race against time as the reader wonders if Maud will find her answers before she is too far gone to remember the questions. Both an exploration of a cold case and a meditation on the inevitability of aging, Maud's last days of lucidity will challenge readers' assumptions about the elderly while also sending chills down the spine. Murder may be scary, but the thought of suffering Maud's fate is utterly terrifying. --Jaclyn Fulwood, blogger at Infinite Reads

Set in a futuristic Los Angeles, capital of the Kingdom of Southern California where magic and the Hierarch rule, this urban fantasy from Greg Van Eekhout (Norse Code) combines sorcery, thievery, betrayal and cannibalism in a rapid-pace story of intrigue and deception.

"Our bodies are cauldrons," Sebastian says, "and we become the magic we consume." A powerful sorcerer, Sebastian urges his six-year-old son, Daniel, to drink a potent concoction of boiled kraken spine, setting Daniel on a path of osteomancy. Sebastian's brutal murder six years later sends Daniel into hiding, where he survives by his wits, reselling stolen bones and powders full of magic for his uncle. In his life of crime, Daniel forges deep bonds with other misfits of society.

Daniel and his team are called upon to break into the Hierarch's storehouse of magical objects, which is protected by supernatural spells and fiercely guarded by humans with special powers. They face golems, shape-shifters and humans trained as search dogs as they navigate the canals and underground terrain of a city where alchemy is in the air they breathe and the bones they consume. Fueled by the magical potions his father fed him, Daniel draws upon his sorcery to fight a classic and heroic battle against the Hierarch, the outcome of which changes everything.

Take the magic of Harry Potter's world and blend it with the X-Men and Ocean's Eleven, then add a dash of flesh-eating, power-hungry humans and you'll begin to understand the complex, delightfully creepy, crime-filled fantasy world Eekhout has cooked up. --Lee E. Cart, freelance writer and book reviewer

Petrarch had Laura, Poe had Annabel Lee, and Leonard Cohen had Marianne Ihlen, the central subject of Kari Hesthamar's So Long, Marianne. While many muses' identities are confined to their role in the art they sparked, Hesthamar's thoughtful and empathetic biography centers on the woman herself, elevating her from an inspiration to a full-fledged human, interesting for her own life, on her own merits.

Hesthamar, who first delved into this story for Norwegian radio, wisely treats Marianne as her primary focus. It would have been easy to analyze her strictly through the lens of her relationships. Originally, Marianne moved to the Greek isle of Hydra with her husband, Axel Jensen, an accomplished novelist who left her for another woman shortly after the birth of their son. She met Cohen when she was still married, and slowly spun friendship into love. Cohen said, "There wasn't a man who wasn't interested in Marianne, who wasn't interested in approaching that beauty and that generosity."

But Hesthamer also paints Marianne Ihlen--through her early 20s as a new, young mother to the end of her time on Hydra, which she left in her mid-30s--as a blonde, tan beauty with a proclivity for new age psychology and a habit of pulling up her roots. We follow her from Norway to Greece, from Greece to Montreal, and while Hesthamar makes no effort to hide her subject's faults, Marianne is ultimately a likable and beautifully imperfect protagonist. It's the mark of a wonderful biography that we, too, fall in love. --Linnie Greene, freelance writer and bookseller at Flyleaf Books

Rumors circulated that Deborah Rodriguez (Kabul Beauty School) was a Christian running a brothel instead of a hair-styling school in Afghanistan. Then her Afghan husband talked of an aborted bombing on the school and her younger son was in danger of being kidnapped, so Rodriguez took her youngest and fled Kabul, abandoning nearly everything (including her marriage). Depressed and afraid, she lived in the mountains of California for two years, battling PTSD and in an on-again, off-again romantic relationship. After years of living on high alert, suddenly Rodriguez "was an emotional basket case... even getting dressed in the morning would suddenly make me burst into tears."

A chance cruise to Mexico, with a stop in the port city of Mazatlán, opened doors. She bought a house and gradually made a circle of friends in the city's large expat community. As the beauty and serenity of Mexican culture slowly seeped into Rodriguez's bones, she searched for a way to make a living outside of the cosmetology world, which she wanted to avoid.

With honesty and pluck, Rodriguez entwines the day-to-day details of being an American in Mexico with humorous and life-altering shopping adventures to Pátzcuaro and Guadalajara and the unexpected arrival of her older son, events that made her rethink her position. Rodriguez's story vibrates with the determination of a woman who wants to make a difference in the lives of others in the only way she knows: teach them to do hair. --Lee E. Cart, freelance writer and book reviewer

It's doubtful former New York Times reporter-turned-Columbia University journalism professor Ari Goldman (The Search for God at Harvard) set out to produce a self-help manual when he began this engaging account of his return to playing the cello after a hiatus of more than two decades. Still, it will be a surprise if his story doesn't inspire at least a few readers to find a long-abandoned musical instrument and prove that their investment--whether of money or time--will bear fruit.

For seven years ending in the early 1980s, Goldman studied cello under Heinrich Joachim, who became something of a surrogate father. In 2009, inspired by his youngest son Judah's gift for the instrument, Goldman joined the titular orchestra, an organization "founded on the premise that serious music isn't only for the accomplished musician." Joachim's influence pervades his former student's dogged struggle to attain a semblance of proficiency. Goldman's goal is to perform a recital on his 60th birthday, an event he recounts with the same modesty that marks the rest of this story. He introduces a bevy of intriguing characters he meets in the LSO, while sharing tidbits on the history of the instrument, playing technique and the pure joy of bringing music to life.

Goldman cites studies that extol the myriad benefits felt by older people who engage in musical training. As his contemporaries move into retirement, he writes, "their quest for learning, meaning, growth and attention is unabated." This warmhearted book reaffirms the truth that their satisfaction will lie in making that journey, much more so than in reaching a destination. --Harvey Freedenberg, attorney and freelance reviewer

"Mathematics is a joke," Alex Bellos declares in his introduction to The Grapes of Math. "I'm not being funny. The mental process is the same." Jokes and equations each contain characters, a story and a punch line (or proof, in mathematics). Bellos (Here's Looking at Euclid) believes the "aha" moments in math are as entertaining as a good joke and he sets out to prove it, taking readers on a whirlwind tour of his favorite mathematical concepts. Numerical laws, the geometry of circles and triangles, the vagaries of pi and even imaginary numbers all warrant a mention.

Bellos's voice is warm and witty, calming the fears of the math-averse and providing a concise primer on long-forgotten principles of algebra and geometry. Each chapter includes real-life applications of a featured mathematical idea, from mountain climbing and land surveying to a complicated computer game created by genius nerds at MIT. Bellos discusses parabolas in relation to telescopes and planetary orbits, centripetal force in railroad construction and the infinitely fascinating fractal patterns created by imaginary numbers.

Some of Bellos's concepts are pure abstract thought (and the explanations are a bit technical for a lay audience), but many of his examples are drawn straight from engineering and architecture. Diagrams in each chapter provide helpful visual aids, and a robust section of appendices offers further proofs where needed.

For amateur mathematicians--or parents struggling to help with algebra homework--The Grapes of Math provides an entertaining refresher course on math in real life. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams

Cammie McGovern's (The Art of Seeing) first young adult novel overturns stereotypes and shines a spotlight on characters who soar above their crippling limitations.

The summer before senior year Amy e-mails Matthew: "Tell me the truth. That's all." Amy has cerebral palsy and she's convinced her mother to swap out her adult aides for peer helpers so she can learn how to relate to people her own age as she prepares for college. Amy requests that Matthew apply because he doesn't shy away from the reality of her disabilities. But the honesty she draws out of him makes him nervous, especially when it comes to her endearing persistence about why he doesn't like sleepovers. Since the ninth grade, Matthew has suffered from obsessive-compulsive disorder, and the voice in his head commands him never to reveal the truth about his routines. But Amy challenges him with exercises to help him overcome his mounting panic attacks and begin the healing process. Still, for all of their honesty, it's the withheld truths that threaten to pull them apart.

McGovern's nuanced writing brings these well-rounded and unforgettable characters to life. She does not define them by their handicaps or limitations, but rather she illuminates the ways in which they help each other and grow through that process. Fans of Rainbow Rowell's Eleanor and Park and Stoner & Spaz by Ron Koertge may well lose themselves in this diverse and rewarding romance. Say What You Will is touching, honest and compulsively readable. --Adam Silvera, children's bookseller

Making her U.S. debut, Iranian-born illustrator Rashin Kheiriyeh takes a tale by Rumi about freedom and makes it entirely her own.

The glorious patterns on the clothes of Rashin's characters, the furniture, floors, walls and vessels immediately transplant readers to an exotic land. "Once upon a time, in Persia, there was a merchant who traveled the world for his business," the book begins. The merchant, with a kind face, wears a stately hat, a vest in ruby red and a jet-black coat with a pattern in gold that resembles bird tracks. A green parrot, given to the merchant by a friend in India, is his most prized possession ("He loved the pretty bird with all his heart"), and he places it in a golden cage. But the parrot looks miserable. When the merchant plans a trip back to India and asks the parrot what gift to bring back, the parrot asks the man to deliver a message to his winged friend ("Tell him that I would love to see him, but I can't because I live in a cage"). Green drapes surround the man and his pet, depicting birds in flight with wings outspread. In India, the merchant spies his parrot's friend and delivers the message in his pet's exact words. The winged friend's response gives the merchant's parrot just what he needs.

Rashin's artwork, steeped in the colors of the Iranian flag, play out motifs of captivity and freedom in the patterns on the grass and the wild red birds outside the parrot's window. --Jennifer M. Brown, children's editor, Shelf Awareness