There are stories that scream and stories that whimper. Rachel Seiffert's The Walk Home somehow does both and neither--a mostly quiet narrative punctuated by moments of unrest. Set in the years following the Irish Troubles, the novel moves among three generations: Brenda, a middle-aged grandmother, and her brother Eric, the family's black sheep; Brenda's son Graham, who married Lindsey in the wake of an unexpected pregnancy; and Stevie, Lindsey and Graham's only son, whose childhood plays out amidst family tensions rising toward the boiling point.

Though the events unfold in Scotland, the family's Irish heritage simmers beneath the surface. When Eric, Graham's long-ostracized uncle, begins to discuss his biblical artwork with Lindsey, her initial response is tight-lipped. Slowly, Seiffert reveals that there are certain topics that are as explosive as bombs in this fictional world: religion, the past, the brutality of previous generations. Even without a full knowledge of this period, a reader will find enough breadcrumbs to follow. Seiffert's contextual hints are subtle, best detected in her characters: Lindsey's depression belies her disgust at the way old patterns replay, generation after generation, leaving familial fissures in their wake; Stevie's wary interactions with neighborhood boys prove his canniness is evolutionary, protecting him against foes that might attack at the sight of a symbolic patch sewn on his jeans or the mention of a last name. In the low-income setting, allegiances are built on dead relatives and everlasting grudges. For a novel so quiet and spare, The Walk Home's aftershock is formidable and eerie, akin to the pause after a moment of startling violence. --Linnie Greene, freelance writer and bookseller at Flyleaf Books

Along with David Foster Wallace, William T. Vollmann is one of the most challenging writers of our time. Prolific and idiosyncratic, his many books have been voluminous, strange and award-winning--Europe Central, a novel about violence in the 20th century, won the National Book Award. In his "To the Reader" preface to this lengthy collection of 32 stories, he tells us this is his "final book." Is it?

Entering into the world of a Vollmann story is like looking at an off-putting, shocking and discomforting photograph by Joel-Peter Witkin; both artists draw heavily upon erotica, dreams, hallucinations, violence and death. The collection is organized geographically--Sarajevo, Trieste, Veracruz, Lillehammer--all places Vollmann lived. The stories have an eerie ethnographic feel and ably capture what he experienced in each city. While these works may deal with ghosts, vampires or monsters, they are rooted in a place and the myths, legends, languages that surround it (many of the stories are heavily footnoted). The narratives themselves are interesting, but what's more intriguing is the philosophical mood each conjures, their meditations on existence and perception behind a "wall of ill." Last Stories might be read as an expansive bildungsroman, 30 years of semiautobiographical visions from an exotic writer's mind.

For readers who have felt a bit intimidated by Vollmann's oeuvre, beginning at the end with this collection of smaller bites might be wise. A story here and a story there and before you know it, you'll be a fan. --Tom Lavoie, former publisher

Mia, the adult narrator The Girls from Corona del Mar, and Lorrie Ann are inseparable adolescent buddies in a middle-class Southern California coastal town. Mia's mother drinks, her father has run off to San Francisco, and she aborts a pregnancy at age 15 with Lorrie Ann's help. Considering Lorrie Ann's kindhearted beauty and seemingly solid, close family, Mia decides, "I was the bad one."

But then life gets in the way of friendship, as it so often does. Lorrie Ann becomes pregnant, marries the simple but stable father and has a difficult childbirth that yields a son stricken with cerebral palsy. Mia wins a scholarship to Yale, develops her talent for classical languages and falls in love with a scholar with whom she travels to Istanbul to co-translate cuneiform poetry. The girlfriends halfheartedly maintain contact with occasional Skype calls, but Lorrie Ann's unraveling life is a distant background noise to Mia's happiness--until Lorrie Ann shows up in Istanbul barefoot, emaciated and addicted to heroin.

In this debut novel, Rufi Thorpe dives deep into the tangled, sometimes tenuous bonds of friendship. The Girls from Corona del Mar fearlessly addresses the difficult decisions many women face (regarding abortion, marriage, child-rearing, professional success and physical self-abuse) while recognizing that these are often more about fate than choice. Eventually, Mia accepts that making choices is frequently just doing the best one can with what life delivers. It is a testament to the nuance of Thorpe's fine treatment of her characters and their friendship that we come to the same conclusion. --Bruce Jacobs, founding partner, Watermark Books & Cafe, Wichita, Kan.

Tiphanie Yanique (How to Escape from a Leper Colony) constructs a wide and magical world spanning three generations on the island of St. Thomas in Land of Love and Drowning. In the early 1900s, as the Danish Virgin Islands are poised to transfer to U.S. rule, Owen Arthur Bradshaw divides his love between his wife, Antoinette, who is beautiful but a reluctant mother; his daughter Eeona, still more lovely and also inveterately jealous; and Rebekah, an obeah (sorceress) married to another man. Antoinette gives Owen one more daughter, Annette, just as Rebekah gives him a son, Jacob Esau. The three children grow up relating to one another in unusual ways. War and American influence broaden their world somewhat, and the forces of nature and island magic both influence and are influenced by the disparate forces that are Eeona, Annette and Jacob Esau.

The story begins with Owen Arthur and his women, then follows his children's and his grandchildren's lives. Perspective shifts among the voices of the three children, but Annette, who grows up to be a historian, speaks the loudest. Her island patois persists even as Eeona nags her to "use proper English." As she writes, "is just a story I telling, but put it in your glass and drink it."

The compelling history of the U.S. Virgin Islands as told through this family's intimacies is multiethnic, colorful and vital. Yanique's diverse characters become doctors, architects, teachers, parents, lovers and fighters; their collective story is haunting and exquisite, told with grace, vibrancy and magic. --Julia Jenkins, librarian and blogger at pagesofjulia

The Confessions of Frances Godwin is told in the end-of-life recollections of widow and retired high-school Latin teacher Frances Godwin. She narrates her story in a no-nonsense, practical Midwest voice, yet faced with death and loss, she mostly wants to understand the spiritual value of her life. Despite growing up in a strong Polish Catholic farm family in Illinois under a matriarch who believed that homemade pierogi and a full church confession were central to living a good life, Frances strayed from the church and fell in love with her Shakespeare professor, Paul. While attending a postgraduate Latin seminar in Rome, she met up with him and soon became pregnant with their daughter, Stella--all before Paul divorced his wife and finally married Frances. Despite Paul's good humor, Frances never quite shakes the nagging guilt over her adultery and out-of-wedlock pregnancy. When a grown Stella takes up with a thuggish ex-con and Paul develops aggressive lung cancer, Frances finds herself racking up more sins, guilt and remorse to protect her family.

The complex but homespun Frances, who genuinely wants to understand her life and live her last years well, carries the work. Like Robert Hellenga's previous novels The Fall of a Sparrow and The Sixteen Pleasures, this story is based in the heart of the Midwest with significant interludes in the ancient cities of Italy. He even throws in an imagined dialogue between Frances and an irreverent God and somehow makes it work. Although the story ranges wide, The Confessions of Frances Godwin is firmly rooted in the culture and values of Hellenga's perfectly rendered Midwest. --Bruce Jacobs, founding partner, Watermark Books & Cafe, Wichita, Kan.

Prudencia Prim has always prided herself on her orderly mind. A librarian with several advanced degrees, she has made a career out of organizing both thoughts and texts. But when she takes a position as a private librarian in the French village of San Ireneo de Arnois, she encounters a group of eccentric townspeople who challenge her views on literature, religion and even love.

Adjusting to her new situation, Miss Prim (who lives up to both her names) finds herself in a constant state of confusion. Her employer (known only as the Man in the Wingchair) and his fellow townspeople are kind and hospitable, but Miss Prim is nonplussed by her employer's penchant for teaching his pupils Virgil and spending time with monks, and mortified when the ladies of the village calmly offer to find her a husband.

San Ireneo is a modern-day utopia of sorts, a colony of voluntary exiles who have withdrawn from the modern bustle to build a quiet, intellectual communal life. Although Miss Prim (nor, likely, readers) doesn't entirely agree with the village's mores, watching her puzzle over each new idea is both enlightening and amusing. Her conversations with her employer's mother and the gradual revelation of his family history add depth to the man's character and make the novel's conclusion more satisfying.

As light and sweet as the homemade pastries that feature prominently in its pages, The Awakening of Miss Prim is a charming fable about the beauty of changing one's mind. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams

The 1790s were a pivotal time for the new United States of America. The fledgling nation's ally, France, was in revolutionary turmoil, while relations with England remained tense. Many French refugees--particularly the upper class--ended up in Philadelphia. More than 10% of the city's residents in the early 1790s were French, including five liberal reformers who'd been chased out of Paris by the mobs: Talleyrand (Napoleon's future foreign minister), the Duc de Liancourt (former president of the National Constituent Assembly), the Vicomte de Noailles (who served alongside Lafayette in the American Revolution), the Comte de Volney (a friend of Jefferson) and Moreau de Saint-Méry (who owned an influential bookstore).

The few years they each spent in Philadelphia saw major shifts in American foreign policy--including the signing of the Jay Treaty and the Alien and Sedition Acts--and foreshadowed the coming Louisiana Purchase. As the five men moved among Philadelphia society and traveled through the backwoods of the country, they observed a nation on the brink of dramatic expansion.

While the subtitle is slightly overstated, the broad scope of When the United States Spoke French is fascinating. Concerning himself with much more than just the five émigrés, history professor François Furstenberg (In the Name of the Father) details the adolescent identity crisis of an emerging nation, and how the United States would eventually establish itself as a power to rival England and France. History buffs are bound to appreciate the interconnectedness of this era. --Jessica Howard, blogger at Quirky Bookworm

In Unruly Places, social-geography professor Alastair Bonnett (What Is Geography?; How to Argue) turns our explored, explained and digested world into unmapped possibilities. Bonnett opens the book with a promise to take readers to 47 of the world's most remarkable places, highlighting destinations both unusual and little-known, while examining what drives people to travel.

From the remains of places that no longer exist, to islands charted on maps (though they never actually existed), to fashionably and consciously constructed destinations of our present, Bonnett has organized the book in a way that mimics human exploration. Unruly Places is best enjoyed from start to finish, but true to the spirit of exploration, readers may begin at any point. For those who engage linearly, Bonnett develops a chronological story of exploration and colonization up to the present day, tying one destination to the next with unifying themes (loss, death and independence, to name a few).

Political, cultural and physical landscapes shape our understanding of geography. Our sense of place continues to be, in many ways, a projection of our desires, hopes and fears. Borders shift, names change, histories are forgotten, construction sites appear overnight, natural spaces are "museumified." In each case, the choices we make about our environments provide a cultural lens through which we interpret the world. Bonnett proposes that our need to explore "off the map" is our attempt to excise a shared emptiness, a hollow and homogenized sense of place in a world that is increasingly accessible and documented. --Justus Joseph, bookseller, Elliott Bay Book Company

Greg Rodgers's (One Dark Night in Oklahoma) trickster tale delivers an entertaining life lesson about good neighborly behavior with a large helping of humor.

He sets the scene with a storyteller's inflection: "Down here in Choctaw Country most folks'll tell you that Chukfi Rabbit is lay-zeeee." Leslie Stall Widener's (Why Would Anyone Wear That?) watercolors enhance the protagonist's predominant characteristic, as he naps among the dandelions, wearing a smart purple jacket. Folks know to watch their food when Chukfi is near: "Blink once and it'll all be gone." When Ms. Shukata Possum asks Chukfi to help her build a new house, he declines--until Ms. Shukata promises "dinner with fresh homemade butter for everyone who helps." Widener depicts a charming cast of helpers and the mouthwatering meal that awaits as their reward, including tanchi labona ("a Choctaw kind of corn stew"). Rodgers revels in the sounds of the industrious team: Kinta Beaver saw-saw-sawing and Nita Bear using Luksi Turtle's hard shell for her ham-ham-hammering. Chukfi, meanwhile, claims he's sick, and sneaks pawfuls of the tub of homemade butter in the coldwater spring. He magically heals after the house is completed, and magnanimous Ms. Shukata invites him to dine anyway. With the hostess's discovery of the missing butter, Chukfi plants evidence to cast suspicion on poor Nita Bear!

Rodgers adds originality to the classic trickster structure through his onomatopoeic sounds of the animals working and dining, as well as Choctaw names for the characters, while Widener's expressions on the animals convey their camaraderie--as well as Chukfi's mischievous ways. --Jennifer M. Brown, children's editor, Shelf Awareness

Children who fell for Minnie and Moo's unusual brand of humor (in their beginning reader adventures) will enjoy this chapter book episode, in which the bovine best buddies throw a talent show.

Moo came up with the idea for the First Annual Hoot, Holler and Moo Talent Festival to raise money so that Mr. and Mrs. Farmer could make a down payment on a new tractor. Denys Cazet's drawings before the title page and on the table of contents page show overviews of Red Tractor Farm plus the preparations being made for the show, and the opening scene depicts the cast of characters. Elvis, who introduces himself as "the rooster with the voice that's so melodious, it makes the sun come up every morning," thinks so highly of himself that he continually tries to grab the mic. Among the other contestants are Zeke and Zack, "Siamese turkeys" born joined at the beak; Don Juan del Toro, a "bravissimo" bull who dances to the "Hooves of Fire" named in the title; Porkus, a porcine blues singer and guitarist; and a couple of suspicious coyote magicians who--voila!--make the money box with the ticket proceeds disappear.

A prank involving rolling Porta Potties, and Minnie's suggestion that the sheep use the word "gluteus maximus" as a substitute rhyme for "mutt" ("What's [that]?... A Roman gladiator," one sheep asks) keep the tone light, and Elvis gets a chance to redeem himself when he helps apprehend the thieves. A fun diversion for budding chapter book readers. --Jennifer M. Brown, children's editor, Shelf Awareness