Chapman's Odyssey, by twice Booker-shortlisted Paul Bailey, draws the reader inexorably into the life of Harry Chapman, heavily medicated in a hospital ward. His ramblings are sometimes lucid, occasionally off the wall and always entertaining. Harry can quote poetry endlessly, to the delight of his attending doctors, nurses and other helpers. He started his adult life as an actor and retains a theatrical flair despite a crippling pain in his belly that makes him cry out for release.

A lifelong reader, despite humble beginnings in an anti-intellectual atmosphere, Harry wrote several successful books after leaving the stage. Many of his best friends are characters from novels he has enjoyed. In his current miasma of drugs, they visit him and settle in for a talk. One of his frequent callers is Pip, of Great Expectations; Harry identifies with Pip's poor boy–makes-good scenario.

Harry's mother is a harridan who has been dead for 22 years and now visits him daily, spewing her venom around the room. Another drop-in is Harry's father, Frank, killed in the war. Harry floats from injection to injection receiving his ghostly guests like a good host.

This all adds up to a fascinating story of a man who has lived a full life both of the body and the mind. Harry was never averse to a little rough trade, but also gloried in fine music, good food and wine and the best in literature. The rapier wit and wisdom of Harry Chapman amuse and amaze by turns. --Valerie Ryan, Cannon Beach Book Company, Ore.

Discover: Harry Chapman, hospital-bound and drugged, reviews his life and times, friends and foes, with probity and wit.

As World War II draws to a close, two Bostonian cousins are parting ways: Nick marries her longtime love and war hero Hughes, while Helena marries Avery, an aspiring filmmaker in Hollywood. Yet the women remain bound together by shared memories of the family cottage in Martha's Vineyard where they spent childhood summers. As their lives begin to unravel, the Tiger House comes to represent their only place of refuge--until a brutal murder illustrates just how fragile that refuge truly is.

Tigers in Red Weather is an exercise in controlled revelation. Through Klaussmann's gradual unfolding, the reader learns the reason for Hughes's emotional withdrawal from Nick soon after they're married and the twisted contours of Helena's marriage to a man who manipulates her through pill addiction. And while Nick gives every appearance of being the perfect wife, she, too, is concealing her share of secrets.

As Nick's daughter Daisy and Helena's son Ed mature and take their places in the drama, they become caught up in the dark secrets of their parents, suffering irrevocable damage as a result. When Daisy and Ed discover the body of a murdered woman, the incident is symbolic of the inability of the adults in their lives to shield them from the ugliness that lurks beneath their mannered façade. Not even the idyllic beauty of Martha's Vineyard can protect the family from the choices that will be their undoing.

Klaussman has produced a suspenseful story that is by turns a mystery, an examination of a marriage and an exploration of the consequences of self-deception. --Ilana Teitelbaum, book reviewer at the Huffington Post

Discover: A suspenseful debut novel set partially in Martha's Vineyard and centered on dark family secrets, a brutal murder and the effects of both on the next generation.

In 17 linked stories, Roshi Fernando's Homesick explores the dynamic of family, the meaning of home, the wrench of displacement.

It all begins with the title story, at a 1982 New Year's Eve party at the London home of Sri Lankans Victor and Nandini. From there, the stories move back and forth in time and place, from Sri Lanka to London to Sri Lanka, from the 1970s to the present. We follow the lives of Victor and Nandini's children, especially Preethi, their funny and forward daughter, and other friends and relatives on the periphery.

Preethi is a young girl eager to assimilate, pilfer wine, learn to smoke, try to suss out just how much sex is enough to make her popular but not promiscuous. Then Preethi witnesses something she shouldn't have seen, and tells the wrong person--with near-tragic consequences.

In a particularly poignant story, "Nil's Wedding," the young bride is sari-clad, led around by her father, toasted, fed sweets like a caged animal and, through it all, wonders at what she is giving up. She is caught between two worlds: one of her birth and one of her choosing. Does she love this man enough to abandon her life for him? Is there a way out?

The final story, "The Funeral," has a coincidence in it too far-fetched to take in, but that is the only false step in Fernando's interweaving series of stories of lives and longing, trials and failures, hope and despair. --Valerie Ryan, Cannon Beach Book Company, Ore.

Discover: A debut collection of 17 connected stories about an extended Sri Lankan family learning--or not--how to belong in a new place.

Pauline Chen's imaginative retelling of Cao Xuequin's Qing Dynasty epic The Dream of the Red Chamber examines how filial duty both binds and destroys families, serving much the same purpose for 18th-century Chinese class structure as Jane Austen's novels did for the West. Behind the refinement and opulence, women retain few choices, their utility determined by their rank and status within a family, a condition Chen communicates through her repressed and mistreated heroines and forsaken lovers. 

The Red Chamber revolves around the Jia family, trusted bondsmen to the Imperial dynasty who have amassed power, prestige and wealth in Beijing. The rebellious Baoyu has lived in the shadow of his deceased and more beloved brother; when his paternal cousin Lin Daiyu arrives at the Jias' home after the death of her parents, her naiveté and outsider views both attract and change Baoyu for the better. They fall in love, but their situation is complicated by Baoyu’s betrothal to his maternal first cousin, the aristocratic but homely Xue Baochai. As they contend with the ensuing political struggles and always shifting family loyalties, each character unwittingly contributes a role to a morality play that will serve as an indictment of existing social and gender inequities.

Chen's version of The Red Chamber may not have the literary heft of Xuequin's 2,500-page epic, but her abbreviated version succeeds in reflecting the historical artifacts whose repercussions reverberate even in the present. In this, she makes the pageantry of a bygone epoch fluid and palpable for 21st-century audiences. --Nancy Powell, freelance writer

Discover: A bittersweet love story and novel of manners that also serves as a commentary on the class and gender inequities of 18th-century China.

Behold a Pale Horse is the 22nd book starring Peter Tremayne's intrepid Sister Fidelma of Cashel. Simultaneously a religeuse, princess and lawyer, Fidelma has a curious mind and cannot resist getting involved whenever something mysterious appears in her path.

Although Behold a Pale Horse is subtitled "A Mystery of Ancient Ireland," it's actually set in 664 A.D. Italy. On her way back home to Ireland after a pilgrimage to Rome, Fidelma is shipwrecked. Stuck in Genoa, she hears that her mentor Brother Ruadan is at an abbey in the mountains. Fidelma sets out to see Ruadan--traveling through the territory of the fierce Longobard warriors (who are gearing up to battle the Franks) to get there. Ruadan confides in her about some mysterious gold coins; but before Fidelma can speak to him again, he's murdered. Soon, Fidelma learns that Ruadan isn't the only person tied to the abbey who has died mysteriously. She is determined to find out if the deaths are connected, and if the gold of which Ruadan spoke is connected to rumors of buried treasure.

Tremayne's lessons in the intricacies of 7th-century northern Italian tribal warfare are fascinating: the Longobards and Franks are opponents both politically and religiously, with pagans, Nicean Christians and Arian Christians all struggling for supremacy. Fidelma must tread delicately to find the gold and solve Ruadan's murder without becoming a victim herself. This intriguing blend of medieval religious life, political warfare and murder will captivate history buffs and crime aficionados alike. --Jessica Howard, blogger at Quirky Bookworm

Discover: The indomitable Sister Fidelma of Cashel can’t resist a good mystery. Can she solve the murder without getting kidnapped or killed herself?

Rob Reid takes his cue from The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy in Year Zero, a humorous tale of a galaxy-spanning alien culture hell-bent on securing the rights to all of humanity's music forever. Nick Carter is a junior-level music lawyer in a high-powered firm when he is visited by surprisingly human-looking aliens who arrive via a temporary wrinkle in space-time to plead their case.

Carter is a fast talker--and thinker. He promises the two oddly dressed humanoids that he'll figure it out, and they disappear back to whatever distant star system they came from. What follows next is a satirical look at pop culture, the music industry, science fiction tropes and intellectual property law.

The galaxy has strict rules of ethical behavior; it must honor laws about artworks from the originating planet. Because of Earth-based antipiracy laws, the galaxy owes humanity a ton of money for the music it's been listening to since 1977, the year radio waves carrying pop music were discovered by alien civilizations. (It turns out pop sends every non-human listener into paroxysms of joy and sensory overload.) Some aliens, however, try to exploit a loophole whereby planets that destroy themselves can no longer collect royalties.

The fun in Year Zero comes from the banter among the main characters, all of whom are well drawn and hilarious in their own right. While the novel satirizes the music industry, it's obvious the author feels as passionately as some of the alien characters about the power of pop music. --Rob LeFebvre, freelance writer and editor

Discover: A humorously written debut satire of intellectual property law, the music industry and a galactic alien culture that may end up destroying the Earth.

Biography readers who love stories of fascinating, historically important figures should rush to find a copy of Soundings, Hali Felt's astute reconstruction of the life of Marie Tharp.

In 1948, Marie Tharp, brilliant and independent in a society that valued neither quality in women, came to work at Columbia University's Lamont Geological Observatory--which owned the largest collection of oceanic data in the world--having already fought a hard battle for an education in the sciences and a career. Barred from fieldwork due to her gender and relegated to drafting maps under men her junior in both age and education, Tharp nonetheless made a startling contribution to the world of earth sciences. While interpreting soundings (a measure of oceanic depth) into oceanic cartography, Tharp discovered the Mid-Oceanic Ridges, an underwater mountain range that proved the theory of continental drift.

While historical accounts show Tharp as a self-contained and outwardly unemotional woman, the topography of her life contained mountains and valleys created by the impact of her mother's early death, her fight for acceptance in a man's world and her unorthodox relationship with Bruce Nezeen, her partner and lover, whose power struggle with Lamont's administration would turn Tharp's career into a bargaining chip.

Felt's skill revives Marie Tharp, finding the shape of an intelligent, passionate woman's personality, the political machinations of the Cold War scientific community and an underwater world where "steaming hot springs resemble ladles of consommé." Felt re-creates scenes as though they were movie montages, depicting Tharp's race to produce a map of the Indian Ocean for the scientific community. --Jaclyn Fulwood, blogger, Infinite Reads

Discover: Marie Tharp, a brave and brilliant geologist in a time when women were all but barred from the scientific field, stars in this imaginative biography.

A self-described "military brat" from Alabama, Chris Heifner transferred to the University of Texas at El Paso in 1997 to live with his grandmother, study economics and pursue his dreams of climbing the corporate ladder to "a cubicle, business cards, my own coffee mug, a reserved parking spot, a 401(k), and a daily routine that didn't include worry and exhaustion." Somewhere along the way, his dreams are waylaid by hard partying and his girlfriend Missy's pregnancy. Late nights at the stripper clubs of "Hell Paso" with classmate Jeff "Jake" Andes don't help. The bills mount, and Missy's telemarketing job and his part-time job at Best Buy aren't cutting it. He needs money bad and turns to Jake, who always seems to have plenty, for a loan. Instead, Jake offers him a job running weed to the Midwest and money back to Mexico to fuel Jake's growing drug business.

Mule is the story of how a vivacious business graduate derails his life for the alluring money of drug trafficking. Despite his sincere efforts to get ahead, Heifner's ambition consistently lands him in trouble. One thing leads to another, until the DEA busts him and offers a deal--if he becomes an informant. We sympathize when he says, "All I knew for sure: rock, me, hard place." Heifner neither is the first nor will be the last to get into such a spot, but his tale of life in "the life" is refreshingly candid. --Bruce Jacobs, founding partner, Watermark Books & Cafe, Wichita, Kan.

Discover: The fast-paced, real-life story of a strapped college grad's desperate turn to drug trafficking and its alluring cash paydays.

David Wojnarowicz was an incendiary painter, photographer, filmmaker and activist at the gritty heart of Manhattan's East Village art scene in the 1980s. He died in 1992, at the age of 37, due to complications of AIDS.

In an unflinching and incredibly humane portrait of his life and death, Cynthia Carr draws from extensive interviews, Wojnarowicz's writings and her own memories of him to recount the experiences, relationships and passions that informed his work. That art is strewn with the "relics and rubble" that fascinated him and marked by themes of destruction and corrupted spirituality--and, near the end of his life, a visceral condemnation of a government that ignored the AIDS crisis.

Wojnarowicz emerges from these pages as a forceful, enigmatic character, "a truth-teller who kept secrets, a loner who loved to collaborate, an artist who craved recognition but did not want to be seen." Carr's probing, masterful storytelling suggests his traumatic early life--an abusive childhood and an adolescence hustling in Times Square--was the foundation for his legendary temper, complex relationships and his artistic and existential sensibilities.

Carr, who covered art for the Village Voice for nearly 20 years, was a friend of Wojnarowicz as well as a witness to the "discovery, exploitation, and demise" of the East Village scene in which he played a pivotal role. Her clear-eyed but impassioned analysis of the double-pronged assault of gentrification and AIDS that destroyed "New York's last bohemia" elevates Fire in the Belly from biography to requiem. --Hannah Calkins, blogger at Unpunished Vice

Discover: A sprawling, elegiac biography that mourns the loss of David Wojnarowicz and the art scene in which he flourished.

"It is a tale of dreams, history, and heartache," writes Katya Cengal. "This is where it all begins, and, for many, where it ends." Bluegrass Baseball is a fascinating glimpse behind the scenes into four teams--three from the minors and one playing in an independent league--battling for fans and for their future amid the Kentucky baseball circuit during the 2010 season.

Each ball club encounters injuries and accomplishments, sacrifices and uncertainty. Only 5% to 10% of ballplayers are drafted to the majors, but such odds don't daunt those fresh out of high school, athletes from poor countries in search of a better life or men past their prime trying to keep the game in their blood. Managers, unable to make the grade in the majors, lead lives just as demanding, unglamorous and lacking in glory as their players. Relationships are tested as wives put their own lives on hold so husbands can chase their big league dreams. And from a business perspective, financial success comes from attendance and advertising--creative ways to draw fans--not directly from the teams' records.

With depth and sensitivity, Cengal details the grind faced by owners, players, trainers, groundskeepers, ushers, broadcasters, mascots and even local families who take in ball players as boarders in their homes. Life in the minors is devoid of chartered planes, fame and fortune, but these vivid, personal stories of ordinary people with a dedicated passion and drive for the game will serve as inspiration for all. --Kathleen Gerard, blogger at Reading Between the Lines

Discover: An in-depth chronicle of four teams from the farm-team baseball circuit of Kentucky.

Chris Colfer is the Golden Globe–winning actor with a soprano's pitch on Glee, but his enchanting storytelling will earn him an audience beyond those who've enjoyed his renditions of "Defying Gravity" and other hit songs.

This story does not begin with "Once upon a time." A prologue reveals Snow White visiting her imprisoned stepmother, the Evil Queen, in a dungeon, ready to explain her cruel intentions.

The protagonists, the Bailey twins, are well versed in fairy tales, but hold different views on them. Alex (a girl) shares Hermione Granger's enthusiasm for books and learning, while Conner thinks "fairy-tale characters are missing common sense." On their 12th birthday, their grandmother passes down to the twins the family volume The Land of Stories, which (unbeknownst to them) possesses magic. The twins soon find themselves hurtling into a world full of characters introduced to them by their recently-deceased father. In order to return home, they must track down the ingredients of the legendary Wishing Spell, which include a lock of Rapunzel's hair and the spindle that cursed Sleeping Beauty. Unfortunately, the Evil Queen has escaped the dungeons and also seeks the Wishing Spell's magic, in order to exact revenge.

Colfer explores life post–Happily Ever After for fairytale favorites such as Cinderella, who's pregnant; Goldilocks, living as a fugitive for her crimes against the three bears; and Little Red Riding Hood, who's in love with Jack of Beanstalk fame. This debut from a promising new voice brims with everlasting magic, adventure and hilarity. --Adam Silvera, reviewer and former bookseller

Discover: Glee's Chris Colfer's enchanting tale of the Bailey twins, who fall into their book, The Land of Stories, where fairytales stretch beyond Happily Ever After.

This chilling debut novel imagines a World War III underwritten by corporate entities that wish to not only control the Earth, but also the galactic space surrounding it.

Fourteen-year-old Tom Raines always thought that Neil, his hard-drinking, gambler father, was just paranoid when he suggested that Elliot Ramirez, the spokesman for the Indo-American forces, wasn't real ("Look how he blinks every fifteen seconds on the dot," his father says). When General Terry Marsh appears in a gaming room to recruit Tom for the military, Tom asks his father to sign the release forms, and Neil is crushed. As he gets deeper into Pentagonal Spire, Tom is amazed to learn that Neil was not so far off base. Dominion Agra has a monopoly on the food supply, and Harbinger controls the water. The cold, calculating war waged by these corporations depends upon teens whose brains have been enhanced by neural processors--computers.

Kincaid likens war in this realm to gaming. Rather than engaging in hand-to-hand combat, the neurally outfitted teens control battles in space. Tom becomes obsessed with Medusa, the Russo-Chinese Combatants' star warrior--so much so that he breeches security to contact Medusa for private simulations. Meanwhile, Tom's mother's sleazy boyfriend, a Dominion employee, uses his position to hijack Tom's neural processor. Kincaid paints a terrifying near future in which America has 33% unemployment. The author leavens the proceedings with Tom's friendships and the pranks they pull, but raises provocative questions about the downside of a global economy when greed runs rampant. --Jennifer M. Brown, children's editor, Shelf Awareness

Discover: A chilling dystopia in which teens' brains are modified to fight a war for a future they may not want.

Newbery Honor author Jim Murphy (The Great Fire) and his wife and co-author, Alison Blank, begin their riveting, interdisciplinary biography of "the greatest killer of humans in the history of the world": tuberculosis, which Homo erectus carried out of Africa.

Ancient Egyptian mummies show evidence of the disease, and Greek physicians were the first to document its symptoms. TB spread through Europe, eventually intersecting with the creation of the stethoscope, the x-ray and antibiotics. The cramped quarters caused by the industrial revolution created the perfect conditions for spreading disease, and coincided with the sanatorium system. Stricken teens were taken from their families to live under a strict regimen for years at a time.

The authors detail many ineffective cures, such as the practice of collapsing a patient's lung in hopes of starving the germs of oxygen. Health laws, education campaigns and housing reforms have all been used to slow TB. Readers will be appalled to learn that minorities and the poor were often left untreated. Not until the 1940s did sick chickens lead to the discovery of streptomycin, the first effective cure for TB. Yet today, tuberculosis remains a worldwide threat. Young readers will appreciate the fascinating facts (such as the 15-pound Gambian pouched rat, trained to sniff out tuberculosis bacilli) and shocking statistics sprinkled throughout (in 1850, 75% to 90% of all people on earth carried the TB germ). The back matter reflects the authors' painstaking research. --Angela Carstensen, school librarian and blogger

Discover: The fascinating evolution of tuberculosis--how it came to be treated, and how society has viewed its sufferers.