In The Story of Arthur Truluv, Elizabeth Berg (The Dream Lover) focuses on contrasting characters whose lives share common threads of loneliness and isolation: Arthur Moses is an 85-year-old grieving the loss of his beloved wife, Nola Corrine. A retired parks groundskeeper and an amateur gardener, he rides a bus everyday to the cemetery and eats his brown bag lunch graveside with Nola. There, he takes comfort in cleverly conjuring visions of the dead in surrounding, underground graves--"Nola's neighbors"--and he imagines the lives they might have lived. The simple gesture of a hand wave brings Maddy Harris--an 18-year-old with a nose ring, who also finds graveyards comforting--into Arthur's life.

Maddy calls the dead "her people," as her mother died in a car crash two weeks after Maddy was born. The tragedy and its aftermath drove a wedge between her and her father, who, tormented by his own grief, emotionally rejected his daughter and ultimately shaped her into a loner. When forlorn Maddy meets compassionate Arthur, their shared affinity for the dead sparks an unlikely friendship. She nicknames him "Truluv" because he speaks with glowing devotion for his late wife. Gradually added to the mix is Lucille, Arthur's meddlesome, 83-year-old, never married next-door neighbor, who faces a shattering loss of her own.

Berg's vivid characters may be vastly different in age, worldview and temperament, but they express a universal need for love, acceptance, purpose and connection. Tender, colorful strokes of humor dot the landscape of this touching story that deepens with poignancy and profound insights into the perils and glories of the contemporary human condition. --Kathleen Gerard, blogger at Reading Between the Lines.

Everybody's on the run from something in Ivy Pochoda's third novel, Wonder Valley, which features a broad cast of Southern California criminals, deadbeats, dreamers and frustrated never-quite-making-it professionals. Pochoda (Visitation Street) unfolds their stories one by one. There's the Beverlywood two-bit studio lawyer Tony, who left his white-shoe Chicago firm to escape a scandal. A young gangbanger wannabe from Brooklyn, Ren is searching L.A. for the mother who abandoned him during his five years in juvie. Britt is a USC full-scholarship tennis jock who took off after a drunken Laurel Canyon car crash. A couple of hard-time criminals are trying to duck the cops after an armed robbery in Vegas. And twin teens Owen and James are adrift in the city following their escape from their parents' Howling Tree Ranch, a chicken farm/commune in the desert outside Twentynine Palms.

Pochoda smoothly and deliberately moves the story of her gritty troupe between events in 2006 and 2010. Her eye for detail rarely misses a thing. Across the four years of the novel, her troubled characters try to shake off the mistakes and misfortune of their pasts and make something new of their lives.

Wonder Valley is not exactly a crime novel, although there are plenty of criminals and crimes. There is no mystery to solve. However, as Pochoda gradually ties up her not-so-loose ends, it becomes a novel of the quest for connection, redemption and ultimately release. In short, it's about escaping demons and reshaping lives. --Bruce Jacobs, founding partner, Watermark Books & Cafe, Wichita, Kan.

The Library at the Edge of the World, the first novel in a proposed trilogy, introduces readers to Hanna Casey, a 51-year-old who left the Finfarran Peninsula--a fictitious setting on the west coast of Ireland--to attend university in London. There, she became a museum art librarian, but later forfeited her career for love--marrying Malcolm, a barrister, and giving birth to their daughter, Jazz, while enjoying a cultured life. But after 25 years of marriage, when Hanna learns that Malcolm has been cheating on her with a good friend, she leaves him--returning home and taking refuge at her mother's small house on the peninsula. Prideful and stubborn about the settlement with her ex, Hanna lands a job at the local library. She remains broke and at odds with her brash, opinionated mother. She also bears the brunt of small-town gossip, and misses Jazz, now based in France while traveling for her airline job. Driving a mobile library book van between rural coastal towns keeps Hanna afloat as she tries to finance the renovation of an old, rundown cottage left to her by a great-aunt. Along the way, the library faces a challenge that puts Hanna's dream in jeopardy and rattles the whole town.

Felicity Hayes-McCoy (The House on an Irish Hillside) crafts her characters well. Rich details of the Irish countryside, along with colloquial expressions and literary references, enhance an enchanting story about self-reliance, coming home and starting over. --Kathleen Gerard, blogger at Reading Between the Lines

E.S. Thomson (Beloved Poison) unveils another gruesome chapter in the life of Jem Flockhart as she looks into a murder in a lunatic asylum. A female apothecary in Victorian London, Jem has lived her entire life disguised as a man. She has no love for Angel Meadow Asylum, a dark, hulking facility whose halls echo with the screams of its disturbed inmates. However, when abusive, phrenology-obsessed superintendent Dr. Rutherford is found dead with his ears removed and stuffed into his sewn-shut mouth, his own calipers sticking out of his head, Jem and her best friend and roommate, Will Quartermain, investigate.

Dark Asylum does for Victorian psychology (if such a word even applies to practices of the era) what Beloved Poison did for Victorian medicine, exposing the ignorant cruelty and indignities inflicted upon the mentally ill during a time when the idea of taking patients outside for leisure was revolutionary. To Thomson's credit, she does not cast the asylum's inmates as villains or cretins, but rather focuses on the inhumane conditions and barbarous treatments they suffer, including forced lobotomies and restraint, and punishment with devices now considered instruments of torture. Chills come from the oppressive, violent atmosphere, gruesome urban legends told by impoverished Londoners and visits to graveyards and other settings dank and grim. Jem is quick-witted and sympathetic to the plight of people deemed insane, as she is an outsider in danger of winding up in an asylum herself if the wrong person discovers her deception. Smart, spine-tingling and sprawling, this second outing shows Thomson has the staying power for a long and delightfully grotesque series. --Jaclyn Fulwood, blogger at Infinite Reads

Myriam Gurba's Mean is a memoir of growing up queer, mixed-race, Chicana and female in Santa Maria, Calif., in the 1980s and '90s. It is also a crime report, and a fantasy featuring ghosts, saints and martyrs. Race, class, sex, sexuality and sexual assault intersect in Gurba's own life and in the news, especially when the man who attacked her goes on to kill a woman in her community. Surprisingly, though, this is also a book capable of making readers laugh out loud.

The first chapter, "Wisdom," introduces a murder. Then Gurba flashes back to a childhood that confuses English with Spanish, because "I assumed we all had the same words." She takes readers from that childhood, with her growing grasp of the messy concepts of white and Mexican (her parents are one of each), as she matures into a young woman dealing with questions of body and sexuality common to teens, plus some exclusive to this particular slice of culture. The reader follows Gurba to college in Berkeley and beyond, as she continues to navigate family and other relationships.

Gurba approaches her grave subjects with acerbic humor and compassion, in a style all her own. She makes the form follow her unusual story. The title is important. "Being mean isn't for everybody. It's best practiced by those who understand it as an art form." Meanness is a weapon, a defense mechanism and a reaction; it is also part of Gurba's art. And yet her story and her storytelling voice are also loving and generous. --Julia Kastner, librarian and blogger at pagesofjulia

Scott Eyman's engrossing, comprehensive and nuanced dual biography of Henry Fonda (1905-1982) and James Stewart (1908-1997) chronicles the Oscar-winning actors' private lives, careers and 50-year friendship. The two were a study of contrasts: Fonda was a fierce liberal, agnostic and workaholic who wed five times; Stewart was a Republican, church-going family man who was happily married for 45 years. Both were loners who found the right profession. "Acting allowed them to express emotions neither of them could have otherwise expressed, use experiences that they would have blocked," writes Eyman.

The friendship began in 1932, when the two struggling actors became roommates (with actor Myron McCormick and director Josh Logan). Both entered motion pictures in 1935, and within five years had become leading men competing for the same Best Actor Oscar in 1940 (Stewart won for The Philadelphia Story, but he voted for Fonda in The Grapes of Wrath). The two lived on opposite coasts in the 1950s, when Stewart's film career soared (Rear Window, Vertigo) and Fonda abandoned his film career for seven years to return to Broadway in Mister Roberts. In the 1960s and '70s, the duo co-starred in three films.

Thanks to fresh interviews with Jane and Peter Fonda and Fonda's widow, Shirlee, Eyman (Empire of Dreams: The Epic Life of Cecil B. DeMille) creates a particularly satisfying portrait of the conflicted and remote Fonda. Fans of both actors will enjoy Hank & Jim, a well-researched and absorbing biography that celebrates and humanizes two complex men and their enduring friendship. --Kevin Howell, independent reviewer and marketing consultant

As the general editor of the Norton Anthology of World Literature, Harvard professor Martin Puchner is superbly qualified to cover the subject of The Written World: The Power of Stories to Shape People, History, Civilization. Circling the globe and spanning human history from the invention of writing to the Internet age, Puchner's book is a lively account of how literature has transformed humanity.

The Written World proceeds in roughly chronological fashion, but Puchner structures his narrative around what he identifies as four stages of the story of literature: small groups of scribes responsible for assembling foundational texts like the Hebrew Bible; "teachers' literature" (written accounts of the words of charismatic figures like Jesus and the Buddha recorded by their followers); the emergence of individual authors like Cervantes; and the era of mass production and mass literacy. Whether it's the development of paper or the invention of the printing press, Puchner is also comfortable discussing the decisive impact of technology on the creation and dissemination of literary texts at every stage.

As he brings his account to a close, reflecting on the challenges rapid technological change will pose when it comes to preserving our literature for future generations, Puchner recognizes that we are "still in the middle of this, an ongoing story." Whatever form our literature may take in the coming centuries, this stimulating history leaves little doubt that its influence on every aspect of human life will be profound and enduring. --Harvey Freedenberg, attorney and freelance reviewer

Personal essays are only as good as the author's voice. In his collection Sometimes I Think About It, Stephen Elliott (The Adderall Diaries) grounds each entry in an authentic, down-to-earth voice that conveys the pain of being human and moribund. With spare diction, Elliott writes of his abusive father, of living on the streets as a teen, of drug addiction and suicidal ideation.

Elliott has a nonchalant way of weaving dark subjects into greater narratives. His masochistic tendencies and morbid fascination with violent films are woven into sober examinations of his love life. In "Hate to Be Alone," he connects sadomasochism to his childhood trauma--"She liked to hurt people, and I liked to be hurt"--as if restaging that trauma in the bedroom could mitigate its long-lasting effects. Although his personal revelations are often unsettling, Elliott locates a tender vulnerability at the center of his struggles, and from there charts a course toward hope, if not redemption. "The difference between a happy ending and an unhappy ending is simply the place you decide to stop telling your story," he writes in "Sometimes I Think About Suicide."

The second half of the collection is more journalistic in scope as Elliott takes his world-weary voice on assignment, writing about a deadly landslide in Southern California, constant fighting and inhumanity in the Gaza Strip, juvenile criminal justice, and the music of Britney Spears, among other subjects. Sometimes I Think About It is dark, ruminative and piercing, depicting how tragedy and pain can actually bring people together. --Scott Neuffer, writer, poet, editor of trampset

Like many copy editors, Emmy Favilla dreams in punctuation marks: the cheeky parenthesis, the versatile ellipsis, the eloquent em dash. But she also dreams of a world "with peace and without whom [...], figurative literallys and comma splices frolicking about."

This vision may strike fear in the hearts of old-school editors everywhere. But Favilla, the copy chief for BuzzFeed, is determined to bring those English-major types along to her subjunctive-free utopia. After making headlines when she published the BuzzFeed house style guide online in 2014, Favilla has spoken widely about her decidedly casual approach to language. Her book, A World Without 'Whom,' is snappy and irreverent--but it's also thoughtful, well-informed and relentlessly commonsense. (And sprinkled liberally with em dashes.)

Favilla begins by tracing the (ongoing) evolution of the BuzzFeed style guide, which she compiled as her first editorial assignment at the site. She then delves into its broad sections, drawing distinctions between vital issues of clarity and sensitivity ("Getting Things Right: The Stuff That Matters") and other questions with more fluid answers ("Getting Things As Right As You Can"). Favilla illustrates her points throughout--sometimes literally--with GIFs, screenshots of Slack exchanges with her colleagues, and examples pulled from BuzzFeed stories. "Change is, after all, what keeps a language in business," she says, insisting that as language evolves, so should our approach to it. But while Favilla may be a linguistic rebel, she's not a total anarchist: she's always ready to poke fun at Strunk & White, but equally ready to insist on clarity, respect, practicality and a dash (em or en) of humor.

While it may induce cringing among red-pen wielders, Favilla's book will also provoke (literal) LOLs and may inspire a kinder, gentler, more free-flowing approach to language for grammar nerds both traditional and modern. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams

Was 1967's surprise hit The Graduate a middlebrow male fantasy or a shrewd comical exposé of a culture wrecked by materialism? Was it a purveyor of gratuitous "anti-adult sentiments" or a sympathetic salute to a generation whose parents had left them adrift? When the film--reductively, about a recent college graduate who has an affair with an older married woman--first appeared, not all critics were kind to it. But history has been, and rightly so, according to Beverly Gray's Seduced by Mrs. Robinson: How The Graduate Became the Touchstone of a Generation.

The analysis is split into three chunks, separated by relevant black-and-white photos and reproductions: a look at how The Graduate came to exist, an almost scene-by-scene dissection of the movie and an exploration of its enduring multigenerational appeal. Gray, a film industry veteran and the author of books on directors Ron Howard and Roger Corman, is an especially sharp chronicler of the movie's social context and influence. Among the aftereffects that she notes is what critic J. Hoberman called the "Jew Wave," or the sudden ubiquity of ethnic-looking male leads: before the risky casting of dark, protuberant-nosed, then-unknown Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate, leading men were supposed to look like Robert Redford.

In addition to supplying insights from the movie's key players and some non-marquee-name observers, Gray offers her own reflections, and their inclusion seems justified. As Gray, speaking for her generation, puts it, "The film had in some mysterious, intimate manner become a part of ourselves." --Nell Beram, freelance writer and author

A book is "dangerous and beautiful... as all the best weapons are." Readers return to Kelanna, a world of magic, pirates, prophesied war and forbidden books in The Speaker, book two of the Sea of Ink and Gold trilogy by Traci Chee (The Reader). Archer and Sefia escaped five days ago from the Guard, the secret society working to gain control of all of Kelanna. While on the run, Sefia tries to reconcile memories of her beloved parents with the newfound knowledge that they had been powerful members of the Guard. For reasons unknown to Sefia, they defied the secret society and stole the Book--"a record of everything that had ever been or would ever be." The Book, Sefia learns, is a "fickle oracle," showing various events past, present and future, though not always what she specifically requests.

Archer's memories have been restored but they do nothing to quell the nightmares of the boys the impressors made him kill. Instead, his memories lead to new levels of violence as he and Sefia work to save the other kidnapped boys of Kelanna. While Archer amasses a following, Sefia wonders if the Book will save them or if it is using them for its own purposes.

The Speaker builds heavily on the momentum of the first novel. Chee's world-building is impressive, using the Book to grow and develop the world's history and the stories of Sefia's parents. Familiar characters return and new players are introduced, including Kaito, a bloodthirsty survivor of the impressors, and Eduoar Corabelli II, the Lonely King of Corabel and last surviving member of a royal family cursed for generations. Brilliantly engaging, The Speaker is a mesmerizing installment in a notable series. --Kyla Paterno, former children's and YA book buyer