New York City is always reinventing itself: growing, pushing, regenerating, completely overhauling. Often that reinvention comes at the cost of preserving its past. As urban renewal projects multiply in 1970s New York, 13-year-old Griffin Watts gets swept up in his father's obsession with saving the city's ornate, often quirky architectural carvings from the wrecking ball. John Freeman Gill tells Griffin's story in his erudite, irreverent debut novel, The Gargoyle Hunters.

Gill (who writes the monthly "Edifice Complex" column for Avenue magazine) delves into the architectural history of Manhattan, as Griffin listens to his father wax eloquent about landmarks public and private: grand structures such as the Woolworth Building and humbler ones such as the Washington Market studio where Griffin's parents lived as newlyweds. "Every New Yorker," Gill notes, "has his own idiosyncratic system of cartography." With his parents' marriage crumbling as fast as the city around him, Griffin agrees to join his dad in "liberating"--i.e., stealing--and then selling scraps of the city, from limestone gargoyles to an entire set of exterior panels for a building. As he learns more about his dad's illicit work, Griffin starts to wonder if his father's obsession is an unhealthy one, but before long, both father and son may be in too deep to extricate themselves.

With a fresh, wry narrative voice, Gill presents a vividly imagined slice of New York history, a quirky portrait of the 1970s and a tender father-son story--with plenty of gargoyles on the side. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams

Aliki, one of the last lamenters in Greece, is dragging the weight of her life behind her in the opening pages of My Last Lament, James William Brown's brilliant work of historical fiction. "There is this about the dead: they're so light. They slip in and out of our world with no effort whatsoever. By contrast, we seem heavy, dragging our lives along behind us like an old sack of stones."

To lessen this burden, Aliki begins to tell the story of her life, speaking into a tape recorder left by a sociologist studying the art of Greek laments. As her memories unfold and unpack themselves, her recounting evolves into a lament itself, for all that she has loved and lost in her long life.

By framing the story as a kind of oral memoir, Brown (Blood Dance) has crafted a novel that is at once epic in its scope and yet remains grounded in the confines of one woman's life. Aliki shines through every page of My Last Lament, a strong and consistent voice that proves a near-perfect vessel for Brown's lyrical prose and centers a story that moves backward and forward through time to recount both Aliki's past and her present.

Brown's ability thoughtfully to address meaningful reflections while examining the very essence of what it means to be alive--in any time, any place--is what makes My Last Lament exemplary of the historical fiction genre. "How does any story end? It just turns into the beginning of another one, the one about us all." --Kerry McHugh, blogger at Entomology of a Bookworm

In a novel with layers of authors, Brian Doyle (The Mighty Currawongs) honors the art of storytelling. The Adventures of John Carson in Several Quarters of the World is firmly based in fact: Robert Louis Stevenson boarded for some months at the home of Mrs. Carson in San Francisco while waiting to marry his love, Fanny. He conceived of a novel based on the tales of his landlady's husband, but never wrote it.

In Doyle's imagination, Stevenson sits by the fire with Mr. Carson as the latter recounts his voyages around the world as a seaman and his experience as a Union solider in the Civil War. This talented storyteller takes Stevenson (and Doyle's reader) through the jungles of Borneo, over the rocky hills of Irish islands, from coast to coast of Canada in winter, to Australia's Sydney Harbor and to the battlefield at Gettysburg. Mrs. Carson turns out to be as fine a narrator as her husband, and both have a knack for ending on a cliffhanger just as dinner is ready.

Doyle's characteristic prose style is effusive, wry, highly descriptive and always passionate about his subjects. Throughout this story of stories runs a thread of commentary on the value and nuances of the storytelling art. Readers hungry for more stories-upon-stories will delight in Doyle's "Afterword" and "Thanks & Notes," which are filled with recommendations for further reading (what he calls "homework").

Stevenson's rollicking zest for adventure blends happily and seamlessly with Doyle's unrestrained love of words and life. Adventures offers daring exploits, romance and emotional highs and lows, and Doyle's signature style expresses it all perfectly. --Julia Jenkins, librarian and blogger at pagesofjulia

Nine years have passed since the end of Sylvain Neuvel's Sleeping Giants, but the appearance of a new robot causes Canadian linguist Vincent Couture, former army pilot Kara Resnik and the nameless Interviewer to spring back into action. Unlike Themis (whose ancient parts were excavated and reassembled into a towering turquoise-veined female robot in the first story), this robot, male in appearance, appears in Trafalgar Square assembled and fully operational. The people of Earth assume the robot, quickly nicknamed Kronos, shares the same origin point as Themis, its concealed pilots almost certainly the same species as her builders. However, when the authorities decide to send Themis to meet Kronos on a mission of peace, her pilots, Kara and Vincent, worry they may be marching to their own deaths. The newer Kronos robot will have more advanced weapons, and since no one has ever unlocked the secrets of Themis's propulsion system, they can retreat only by literally running away.

This sci-fi thriller's assemblage of transcripts from interviews and radio conversations, memos and letters delivers the same over-the-top action quotient as the first installment, with a dash more soul-searching. Readers new to the series should catch on quickly, and fans will delight in the reunion with their favorite characters, though the body count is not limited to bystanders. Despite a few teary moments, little can beat the sheer escapist fun of giant robot fights, and Waking Gods' cliffhanger finale promises more answers to come in the third book. --Jaclyn Fulwood, blogger at Infinite Reads

Bianca Bosker (Original Copies) believes that the reason an average wine drinker can't tell a Merlot from a Meursault is because of Plato. The philosopher argued that the experiences of the nose and mouth were intellectually bankrupt, and generations of thinkers have continued in this tradition, shaping cultural attitudes. But the fanatical sommeliers whom Bosker chronicles in Cork Dork: A Wine-Fueled Adventure Among the Obsessive Sommeliers, Big Bottle Hunters, and Rogue Scientists Who Taught Me to Live for Taste have turned Plato's philosophies on their head. Eschewing toothpaste, deodorant and any warm drinks that could possibly alter their palates, these obsessive wine servers are determined to be able to identify any wine, right down to the vintage year, after a mere sniff or sip.

When Bosker, at the time a tech reporter, first heard about the world of elite sommeliers, she was fascinated, and eventually quit her job to chronicle her entry into their world. Starting as a "cellar rat" earning $10 an hour in a top New York restaurant, Bosker slowly immerses herself into the wine subculture.

Reminiscent of Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations, the larger-than-life characters that Bianca encounters in Cork Dork are funny, profane and experts in their chosen field. Along the way, her "original obsession with making sense of their obsessive ways... morphed into an obsession with the things they obsessed over," and Bosker decides to try to pass the Certified Sommelier Exam herself. With a quick wit and keen attention to detail, Bosker will draw readers into her challenge--even those who don't like wine! --Jessica Howard, blogger at Quirky Bookworm

Many books have been written on the life of Leonardo da Vinci, the great 15th century painter and inventor. But no one has probed his soul and speculated so profoundly about his actions quite the way Mike Lankford does in Becoming Leonardo: An Exploded View of the Life of Leonardo da Vinci.

Using copious research, Lankford dives into Leonardo's life, beginning with his birth, which was the result of a possible rape that a notary named Ser Piero committed against Caterina, a house slave. Lankford pushes the envelope of what is known about the man and ponders the true nature of the artist. He was left-handed, but was he also dyslexic, and did this cause him to write backwards? Did he have Asperger syndrome, and would that explain his fascination with new and intriguing ideas, as well as his inability to finish a project? Was he a homosexual, and is that why he was thrown into prison for an unspecified amount of time?

The list of conjectures is long, but Lankford backs his ideas with sound observations and keen analysis. He paints a thorough picture of the man who continually searched for new ways to express himself through his art, using innovative techniques that often failed and stopping long before a project was anywhere near completion. During his lifetime, Leonardo failed far more often than he succeeded but, as Lankford surmises, it was only failure in the eyes of those around him. Leonardo led the life he wanted, full of observation and exploration. --Lee E. Cart, freelance writer and book reviewer

Who better than Washington Post journalist T.R. Reid to bring to life and then systematically carve up the particularly byzantine United States tax system? With decades in Washington and assignments as bureau chief in London, Tokyo and Denver, Reid (The Healing of America) has seen enough to explain tax structures in lucid, jargon-free prose that at times seems as amused as it is outraged. A Fine Mess covers the primary categories of federal taxes detailed in the 73,000 pages of IRS regulations, and even includes thoughtful chapters about recent events like the fascinating story of the Panama Papers exposé and Thomas Piketty's surprise bestseller, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, with the reminder, "Piketty is French, and France is the world champion at soaking the rich through taxes."

Everybody knows the United States tax structure is in need of reform--even Congress (though Reid advises, "When Congress takes up tax reform, the 'reform' generally makes things worse"). But he argues that to confront myriad vested interest groups--including tax preparers ("Today, barely 10% of Americans do their own tax returns"), lobbyists, realtors, nonprofits, huge international corporations, tax lawyers, M&A consultants and even the 90,000 IRS employees--takes backbone. Methodically, Reid illustrates how dozens of countries collect taxes much more fairly and efficiently--and have happier taxpayers to boot. After his lively discussion of what exists today in the tax world, his concluding multi-point recommendations to fix the mess make eminent sense. But who's going to step up and do it? --Bruce Jacobs, founding partner, Watermark Books & Cafe, Wichita, Kan.

Long before nature writer Susan Ewing (Going Wild in Washington and Oregon) mentions Indiana Jones in Resurrecting the Shark, readers are ensnared in a quest for a 270 million-year-old fish fossil that feels like riding shotgun with Indy. Paleozoic shark Helicoprion ("spiral saw") is the stuff of movie legend. If the thought of a great white doesn't get the blood pumping, imagine a shark with a two-foot-tall whorl of teeth--like a circular saw--sitting midline in its lower jaw.

Meticulously researched and spanning numerous disciplines, along with a "rockin' lot" of evolution, Resurrecting the Shark is the compelling saga of how an ancient ocean oddity became a global passion project. First stumbled upon by an Australian looking for gold under blackbutt trees in the 1880s, Helicoprion fossils were later discovered in Russia and the United States--each find sparking new fervor, doubt and debate.

An astonishing amount of information is shared, but just the right sense of cheeky humor and an enthusiastic writing style keep the facts from becoming overwhelming. By fleshing out theories and arguments spanning more than a century, Ewing treats readers to the culmination of the Helicoprion adventure: what it looked like, where it ranged, and how and what it ate.

From unknown specimen to gallery and museum exhibit, Helicoprion's journey was a labor of love. Geology enthusiasts, taxonomy nerds, paleontology buffs, shark devotees and artisans alike will rejoice in this recounting of how a multitude of people brought the mystery to life. --Lauren O'Brien of Malcolm Avenue Review

Tom Grendel can divide his 17-year-old life in "exactly three phases: before Mom, after Mom but before Dad/Iraq, and my current post-Dad/Iraq period." Tom's mother died suddenly when he was nine. His father deployed to Iraq, leaving Tom and his sister, Zipora, with their grandmother. Dad returned as the sole limbs-intact survivor of an IED explosion, Zip left for college, father and son moved "to our quiet house by the lake, and all was well... enough, anyway."

Besides doing lawncare for the neighborhood's mostly elderly women, summer vacation was supposed to be spent hanging out with best buddy Ed Park. Then TV journalist Ellen and her two teenagers--intractable Rex and enticing Willow--move in next door, and Ellen promptly disappears to cover an out-of-state story--leaving the house party-ready. The unrelenting thumping music into the wee hours is enough to trigger Tom's father's PTSD, exiling him to a Florida business trip. His absence gives Tom two weeks to stop the madness before Dad can come home. Complications grow--inept, bribable police, Willow's kisses, the enabling appearance of Rex and Willow's cousin Wolf, and the return of prodigal sister Zip.

A.E. Kaplan's debut novel proves raucous and entertaining, but it's also got centuries-old history attached: literary aficionados might recognize enough of the characters' unique names and plot lines as an homage to Beowulf, albeit epically reimagined and reclaimed from Grendel's point of view. Old English lesson aside, Kaplan's witty writing--enhanced with attack dogs, high pigs, long-lost love letters and a (really awful) painting--should do just fine as boisterous, contemporary fun. --Terry Hong, Smithsonian BookDragon

"Small or big?" "Empty or full?" "Straight or curvy?" Appearances can be deceiving in this sturdy square board book about one of the more fun early learning concepts: opposites! Open the book to any page and see, for instance, a bright yellow sun, the heat blazing out its rays. The bold text across from the picture reads simply, "Hot or cold?" Hot, of course, right? But open the gatefold and--surprise!--that wasn't a sun, it was the tops of two icy popsicles! Then, "Thin or wide?" It sure looks like a thin pencil... but no, unfold the page and discover what you were looking at was in fact the edges of a wide bridge. "One or many?" One sweet sheep stands alone... until the double-creased page opens to reveal many sheep--what looked like just one was the front of one and the back of another.

The youngest readers will delight in the unexpected in Italian illustrator Agnese Baruzzi's charming, interactive Opposite Surprise. Baruzzi, who clearly enjoys inspiring readers to shake up their assumptions and explore different perspectives, as evidenced in Look, Look Again and Topsy-Turvy Monsters, knows better than to clutter up the pages of a book designed for children who are just starting to play with words. Minimal but thickly drawn text on brightly colored solid backdrops contrasts appealingly with clean, colorful illustrations on the bright white opposing pages. Tots will not only begin to grasp the concept of opposites; they will have a glimpse into a (friendly) world where what you see might not be what you get. --Emilie Coulter, freelance writer and editor