Irish novelist Colm Tóibín (Brooklyn; The Testament of Mary) captures the social tumult of late-'60s Ireland in Nora Webster, but the eponymous heroine's story is age-old and resonant. She's a young widow facing single motherhood in a fishbowl of a small town, struggling to forge a new life despite sympathetic but judgmental family and friends.

Nora's husband, Maurice, was beloved by all, a teacher and community leader who rescued her from a stifling family and reliably supported her and their four children. She is just 40 when he dies after a long illness, and "the problem for her was that she was on her own now and she had no idea how to live." Her girls are away at school, but her two young sons rely on her love and care. Helpful friends and relatives consistently insinuate themselves into her days. When she is invited to interview for an office job, she wonders who orchestrated it.

The children, her work and peaceful evenings satisfy Nora, but she does love music, something she and Maurice did not share. She joins the Gramophone Society and accepts an offer of singing lessons. As she embraces experiences she has created for herself, she acknowledges her strong will and comes into her own. The Troubles erupt, a union comes to town, her children grow into young adults, and Nora handles it all with quiet grace. Tóibín's protagonist is resilient and good but never ingratiating, admirable for her self-respect. --Cheryl Krocker McKeon, manager, Book Passage, San Francisco

Nguyen Nhat Anh's Ticket to Childhood, deftly translated by William Naythons, provides a compelling if conflicted portrait of modern-day Vietnam. As a parable "aimed at adults who were children once," the novel describes many quixotic attempts by a group of eight-year-olds to "revolutionize" their world. They rename common objects (a notebook becomes a hat, a dog turns into a banana, feet means mouth), hold mock trials of their parents and raise feral dogs as household pets. These adventures often end in parental discipline verging on abuse. In the episode involving dog training, one alcoholic parent winds up with a sumptuous canine feast.

Inspired by Robert Rojdesvensky's poem "A Town from Childhood," the novel wistfully explores the divide between expression (childhood) and censorship (adulthood). The poetic reference is telling: Rojdesvensky spoke against social realism during the Khrushchev Thaw in the 1950s, but later became an active mouthpiece for the Soviet government. Similarly, Anh's criticism of the Vietnamese government reflects a semblance of glasnost. While using allegory to voice his political dissatisfaction, Anh downplays its impact by suggesting that restless citizens are nothing but pampered children: "Children have blind spots. They take parental love for granted. The kids who complain the loudest are often the ones who are loved the best. It takes a certain security to be critical."

While Ticket to Childhood was popular in Vietnam when it was published in 2008, Anh is circumspect about its debut in the U.S. He need not worry. His acrobatic wit, even his political ambiguity, will generate many trenchant discussions. --Thuy Dinh, editor, Da Mau magazine

A substantial Iranian-Jewish community grew in Los Angeles in the wake of the Iranian Revolution of 1979, leading to a daily battle between old-country culture and American ways, a common occurrence in the city where most everyone comes from somewhere else. In The Luminous Heart of Jonah S., Gina B. Nahai (Moonlight on the Avenue of Faith) explores the complicated forces holding this exile community together, sometimes in spite of itself.

Some immigrants reinvent themselves in a new country, while others remain close to their roots. The Soleymans have done both. By the time the revolution forces Elizabeth Soleyman and her daughter Angela to escape Tehran, the young mother has lost nearly everything imaginable: parents, siblings, her husband, Aaron, daughter Noor and their home. Thanks to connections in the U.S. and her own startling intellect, Elizabeth rises to the top of Los Angeles's Iranian-Jewish community. Soon, though, a man whose unlikely claim to be her late husband's nephew and heir--a claim that has long been denied by the Soleymans--brings his mother's mission to destroy Elizabeth and her family from the old country to the new, never foreseeing that the "curse of the widow's sigh" might take him down as well.

Nahai has crafted an engaging combination of family saga and murder mystery, placed it in the framework of a relatively unknown subculture, and peopled it with fascinating characters. Flavored with both elements of magical realism and down-to-earth observations, The Luminous Heart of Jonah S. brings a little-known Los Angeles community to vivid life. --Florinda Pendley Vasquez, blogger at The 3 R's Blog: Reading, 'Riting, and Randomness

David Bell (Cemetery Girl; Never Come Back) offers up another gripping thriller with The Forgotten Girl, which describes a desperate few weeks in the life of Jason Danvers. Five years earlier, Jason reluctantly moved back to Ednaville, Ohio, with his wife after he got laid off in New York. Jason and Nora have been leading an uneventful, small-town life until Jason's sister, Hayden, turns up unexpectedly. When Jason last saw Hayden, she was struggling with alcohol addiction, so he's suspicious of her intentions.

Now sober, Hayden asks Jason and Nora to watch her teenage daughter, Sierra, for two days; she doesn't explain why, just says she needs a little time. Jason and Nora hesitantly agree, but two days pass, and Hayden doesn't return. Soon, Sierra disappears, too, and then a body is found in the woods outside of town. Jason must confront Hayden's past and hunt down her high-school drinking buddies in an attempt to find his missing sister and niece.

The Forgotten Girl is not a fast-paced thriller; it's a completely believable chronicle of a family's stress and fear when loved ones go missing. From a prosaic beginning, though, Bell slowly and steadily increases the tension as the secrets in Hayden's life (and possible death) multiply. These events seem like they could happen to anyone--particularly anyone from a small town--and that edginess will keep readers turning the pages. --Jessica Howard, blogger at Quirky Bookworm

Sons of Sparta, the sixth book in the Chief Inspector Andreas Kaldis series by Jeffrey Siger, focuses on Detective Yianni Kouros, scion of an infamous Greek crime family on the Mani Peninsula. The Maniots, rumored descendants of Spartan warriors, have carried on Spartan traditions of violence in their isolated corner of the Peloponnese.

Kouros's uncle is retired from his days as a crime boss, but has recently received death threats. He urges Kouros to come home, investigate the threats and prevent his cousins from continuing the cyclical vendettas that have left many members of their family dead. Before Kouros can do anything, Uncle is killed, and Uncle's daughter, Calliope, cries for her brothers to exact vengeance on their father's killer. Kouros must bring Uncle's killer to justice quickly to prevent the spread of familial reparations.

Back in Athens, Kaldis is investigating government corruption at the highest level. To their surprise, Kaldis and Kouros discover a connection between the death of Uncle and the government conspiracy, which forces them to collaborate to unravel the secrets of the Mani.

Surprisingly funny, Sons of Sparta is a raunchy romp that will leave readers chuckling at the antics of the two irreverent detectives. Thanks to his family connections, Kouros easily navigates the dark waters of Mani society, but confident Kaldis demonstrates equal ease among both gangsters and government officials. Larger-than-life characters, an intriguing setting and plenty of twists make Sons of Sparta an irresistible mystery. --Jessica Howard, blogger at Quirky Bookworm

In The Brewer's Tale, homebrewer William Bostwick (Beer Craft) examines beer in history and the history in beer, brewing as he goes.

Bostwick follows the progression of human history, starting with primitive Mesopotamian bread and its immediate companion (rudimentary ale) and moving through the early European shamans who used beer (sometimes laced with hallucinogens) in their practices to the monks whose influence persists in abbey and Trappist ales. He visits the farmer who brewed with his leftover produce, and members of the London working class who passionately consumed the porters that were named after them. With each stop on this tour, Bostwick gives equal play to the past and to characters who maintain or rejuvenate these historic styles. He also attempts his own brews, with mixed results. Through grogs and meads; farmhouse ales like lambics, sours and saisons; porters, stouts and pales; and finally light (and lite) lagers, The Brewer's Tale reminds us that beer is not only the stuff of frat parties or snifter-poured snobbery; it can be experimental, fresh and fun, and has always been at the heart of the human experience.

Bostwick runs a little heavy on symbolism, but his subject is heady and intoxicating, so why not the metaphor as well? The initiate will be well served, but even a well-read beer geek can be excited anew by these reflections, and the homebrewer may well be inspired to fresh projects. The Brewer's Tale is history, a joyful celebration and a call to appetizing action in an easygoing, conversational tone. --Julia Jenkins, librarian and blogger at pagesofjulia

In the United States, much of the discussion of abortion frames an embryo as a person and a woman as a place for a person to grow, pushing women out of the debate. In Pro: Reclaiming Abortion Rights, Katha Pollitt shifts the focus of the discussion away from embryos and back to women.

Pollitt makes clear she is not engaging in a debate about whether abortion should be legal. Instead, she operates from the premise that abortion is--and has been for thousands of years--a common part of a woman's reproductive health. She argues that the abortion debate is a vehicle to control women, largely because many people in this society do not value women. In a country that so fiercely rallies to cries of freedom, choice and government non-interference, many people work to undermine this when it applies to women.

Exploring the beliefs people who identify as "pro-life" have about abortion, which she sees as illogical and frequently contradictory, Pollitt argues that such groups use tactics of fear and misinformation, often stooping to lie outright to women about the procedure, such as claiming that women who have abortions will die of breast cancer. For readers who have been uncertain of their position, this book may help them see through the diatribes surrounding the subject that have obscured the real issues and realize that they support access to abortion. --Justus Joseph, bookseller at Elliott Bay Book Company

In his foreword, longtime Best American Essays series editor Robert Atwan describes the 2014 collection as "impressively diverse... intense, intellectual, and inventive." In his introduction, editor John Jeremiah Sullivan (author of Pulphead, which was nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award) doesn't comment on individual essays but instead offers up a brief history of the essay, and notes that the form continues to flourish, which is evident from the 21 sterling selections here.

The joy of essays is that they sometimes teach us about the oddest things, as in Wendy Brenner's humorous "Strange Beads," about her passion for bidding on vintage/costume jewelry from eBay seller Bergbay310. These lessons are sometimes serious; in Leslie Jamison's "The Devil's Bait" we learn about the mysterious riddle of Morgellons disease, the key symptom of which is fibers emerging from the skin.

Some pieces are disquieting: Chris Offutt's powerful "Someone Else" deals with his childhood sexual abuse at the hands of a "fatman" and the long-term psychological and emotional effects it had upon him. Kristin Dombek's "Letter from Williamsburg" delves deeply--in few pages--into her conflicted notions of religion, God and sex and the moment she figuratively threw herself "off a cliff into an empty space."

Others strike a less dramatic note. Zadie Smith's "Joy" tries to come to grips with the subtle difference between pleasure and joy. Paul West hilariously writes about a "heroic art form": "On Being Introduced." This sumptuous collection shows us the magic a fine essay--a "loose sally of the mind," as Samuel Johnson described it--can achieve. --Tom Lavoie, former publisher

Alaya Dawn Johnson (The Summer Prince) fills her modern-day thriller with spies, intrigue and a deadly pandemic, all filtered through the eyes of a teen who's growing resentful of her mother's oppressive attempts to control her life.

After eight days in a coma, 17-year-old Emily Bird wakes up in a hospital room. Washington, D.C., is in a panic over a serious new strain of flu, released by terrorists. Tanks patrol the streets and quarantines are in place. Emily has vague memories of being drugged at a party and taken away for questioning. She has no idea what her abductors wanted. But her parents are involved, as well as the CIA and a drug company so secretive that her mere mention of its name led her into this mess.

She begins calling herself Bird, questioning who she is and how she will lead her life. Once she was good-girl Emily, who studied hard and whose biggest act of rebellion was choosing Stanford over Yale. Now she questions not only her mother's choices for her, but also why Bird feels a need to fulfill them. With the help of the drug-dealing son of a Brazilian diplomat, Bird investigates what power she may have, both in her struggles with her mother and in the bigger challenge of a Washington under siege.

This fast-moving, compelling novel is complex and smoothly written. Johnson successfully balances issues of race and social responsibility alongside the more personal concerns of a young woman verging on adulthood. --Lynn Becker, host of Book Talk, the monthly online discussion of children's books for the Society of Children's Book Writers & Illustrators