In her first novel, God Is an Astronaut, Alyson Foster tells a story entirely in juicy, funny, self-deprecating e-mails from botany professor Jessica Frobisher to her colleague Arthur, a former lover and confidant who is on a field sabbatical in Canada. We don't see Arthur's responses, yet Foster skillfully presents a full picture of him and a dozen other well-developed characters strictly through Jess's observations and distinctive voice. Jess is born to write e-mail, tapping out missives during airport layovers as if they were uninhibited postcoital pillow talk--frank, loving, smart, vulnerable.

Surprisingly, Jess's one-way e-mail narration builds a solid plot filled with digressions, drama and anticipation. Jess, her aerospace engineer/entrepreneur husband, Liam, and their two preschool children are caught in the wash of intrusive media attention after the tragic explosion of a shuttle launched by Liam's private space-travel company, Spaceco, dooming its four "one-percenter" passengers. Though Jess becomes further estranged from Liam, she reluctantly agrees to support Liam's company by riding the next Spaceco shuttle. Only her candid e-mails to Arthur provide her with a platform to sort things out and share her ambivalence.

God Is an Astronaut covers a lot of ground: science, family, love, media, horticulture, rocketry. Foster also gets in plenty of shots at modern pretension, like the angst of privileged academics, selfish Evangelicals like Jess's occasional babysitting neighbor, global-warming fanatics and overzealous lawn-care professionals. However, when Jess is finally circling Earth from 200 kilometers with a God's-eye view of its geography and weather, her troubles, like bad storm days, are given perspective: "It's always lightning on Earth somewhere." --Bruce Jacobs, founding partner, Watermark Books & Cafe, Wichita, Kan.

Mun Yu-Jung lies in a hospital bed after her third failed suicide attempt. Once a famous pop star lauded for her single hit, she is now an angry, impulsive young woman. When her religious aunt offers an alternative to therapy, Yu-Jung grudgingly agrees to accompany her on visits to a death-row inmate for a month.

Both Yu-Jung and Jeong Yun-Soo, the prisoner, believe themselves beyond redemption; they've heard from others that they are garbage and a waste of space for so long that those voices of hate have become their own. When the two meet, though their lives have been very different, they recognize they've both come from a similar place of pain.

Gong Ji-young (a major South Korean author, infrequently translated into English) alternates between Yu-Jung's point of view and Yun-Soo's story, told in letter form. Yu-Jung's initial disgust for the death-row inmate slowly evolves into compassion as Yun-Soo shares his past, and in these moments of compassion, Yu-Jung finds a way to heal from her own traumas. The closer these two become, the more the specter of Yun-Soo's execution haunts their every conversation.

In Our Happy Time, Gong examines the role society plays in creating criminals and explores the price paid when people vilify and dehumanize others. She does not shy from hard truths, revealing her character's inner conflict and humanity with a deft and practiced hand. This is an emotionally difficult story told gently, but does not leave readers unscathed. --Justus Joseph, bookseller, Elliott Bay Book Company

The day that Devil Wix, illusionist extraordinaire, meets Carlo Boldoni, a bad-tempered but magnificently theatrical dwarf, is a lucky one for both of them. They soon cobble together a spectacular illusion, and the team of Boldoni & Wix is born. Victorian London is eager for such amusements, and as the duo's reputation grows, their company soon expands. They're joined by Devil's childhood friend Jasper, a talented artist, along with Heinrich, a bizarre performer who is in love with the automated woman he created. But their strange little group isn't complete until a young model named Eliza joins it. Both Jasper and Carlo love Eliza, but Eliza has eyes only for Devil.

The Illusionists follows the unlikely quintet over many years, as their fortunes wax and wane. Attempting to balance their respective affections for each other and their individual desperation for the limelight creates ever-growing tensions, which ultimately lead to violence, brilliance, love and even death.

Rosie Thomas (The Kashmir Shawl; The Potter's House) ably captures the magic of Victorian London--including its spectacular advancements in technology, such as the phonograph, electric lighting and automata--yet she does not neglect the seamy, hardscrabble life so prevalent among theatrical performers. The descriptions of the illusionists' struggles to survive are gripping, providing an insider's peek into a rare world. Much like Water for Elephants or The Night Circus, The Illusionists quite literally pulls back the curtain, revealing the mundane reality behind the magic. --Jessica Howard, blogger at Quirky Bookworm

In early 1960s Chicago, 10-year-old Sophia has no friends her own age. Her society is Jim, a photographer in love with her mother; Rita and Sister Eye, her mother's former roommates; and, occasionally, her mother, Naomi, a lounge singer aspiring to fame. "Mother's feelings are the curb I walk, trying to keep my balance... when she notices me, all the times she doesn't notice me get erased." Rebecca Rotert's debut novel, Last Night at the Blue Angel, alternates between Sophia's perspective and that of a younger Naomi, discovering herself and escaping Kansas.

The city's colorful '60s jazz scene is a playground for a woman as beautiful and talented as Naomi, and its architecture provides focus for Jim's photography (when he's not focused on Naomi), set against the background of segregation and the Cold War. Sophia is precocious, wise beyond her years and profoundly nervous. She keeps lists: of her mother's conquests, of the many practicalities she'll need to reinvent after the bomb is dropped. But routine is disrupted when a man resurfaces from Naomi's past just as she gets her shot at stardom after 10 years of hope and effort. Her final performance at the once-proud jazz club the Blue Angel holds promise, but will come at immense cost for both mother and daughter.

Rotert, an accomplished singer herself, beautifully evokes the vibrancy of this setting. But her true artistry lies in the complex mother-daughter relationship at the center of this story, and the deeply sympathetic, nuanced, heartbreaking character of Sophia, a child in an adult world on the brink of enormous change. --Julia Jenkins, librarian and blogger at pagesofjulia

The women of the Amado family are tough. Disparate as their lives are, when trouble comes to any one of them, the others circle the wagons. "Don't Mess with the Amado Women" might make a more descriptive title for Désirée Zamorano's novel about three generations of a Southern Californian Latina family. Grade-school teacher and matriarch Mercy was left with three toddler daughters and a bucketful of credit-card debt when her alcoholic, philandering husband abandoned her. Now in her 60s, she still frets over her grown daughters. Divorced Celeste runs a successful financial-investment firm. Sylvia has her own daughters, a spendthrift Anglo husband and a big house in Pasadena. Unmarried Nataly, the free spirit, waits tables to pay the rent, has many sexual liaisons and makes textile art on her hand loom.

Zamorano, director of Occidental College's Community Literacy Center, eschews the stereotypical storyline of long-suffering Latina women keeping house for the rich. Instead, her protagonists are middle-class women with contemporary problems developing in the years straddling the turn of the 21st century. Celeste's business takes a hit as her clients retreat from the stock market. Sylvia's husband loses his job and runs off on a sexual adventure with another man just as their youngest daughter develops a serious medical issue. Nataly's potential big gallery break in New York vanishes with the city's post-9/11 paralysis. Yet amid all this, Mercy shares her stoic optimism with Celeste: "You lose your little girl every day... the one little girl you thought you knew and loved is replaced by another one. A little older, a little smarter, a little more independent." Life goes on, especially when one has a family of strong women for support. --Bruce Jacobs, founding partner, Watermark Books & Cafe, Wichita, Kan.

Everyone loves a good conspiracy theory, but in Charles Stross's Laundry Files series--about the British secret agency that deals with all the supernatural horrors that really exist--the theories are true.

Laundry agent Bob Howard is an apprentice necromancer who spends his time protecting the normals of the world from very real Lovecraftian horrors that lurk just beyond human perception. Demons exist, and the way to connect with them is to solve abstract mathematical formulas. A group of financial wizards have discovered a way to turn themselves into vampires via complex market-modeling algorithms. These humans now have a hankering for human blood and a sensitivity to sunlight. They don't seem to be deterred by wooden stakes or Christian imagery, though. In fact, the freshly created monsters use agile project management (a favorite among software coders) to test all permutations of the vampire myth and find out what they can and can't get away with.

Once Bob accidentally discovers the existence of these bloodsuckers while on a side project at work, he must find a way to save his marriage, his co-workers, the vampires themselves and (not incidentally) the entire world.

As the fifth full novel in the Laundry Files (which started with The Atrocity Archives), The Rhesus Chart maintains the same breezy humor and confident intelligence of the first four books while ratcheting up the stakes for the protagonist. Stross continues to show his mastery of the form, mixing solid character development and engaging action with smart social commentary and a compelling cliff-hanger ending that promises more to come. --Rob LeFebvre, freelance writer and editor

Jacqueline Winspear, author of the popular between-the-wars Maisie Dobbs mystery series (Leaving Everything Most Loved; Elegy for Eddie), steps back a few years with a standalone novel set in the first few months of World War I. Written in gentle, elegiac prose, The Care and Management of Lies focuses on the lives of three people: brother and sister Tom and Thea Brissenden, and Kezia Marchant, best friend of Thea and new wife of Tom.

Tom and Kezia are slightly worried by Thea's suffragette ways, but life is mostly quiet and content for the Brissendens until the war breaks out. Tom enlists, leaving Kezia struggling to run the farm alone as Thea heads off to France as an ambulance driver. At the core of the story are the letters that Tom and Kezia exchange. Kezia writes up lavish meals that she pretends she's serving to Tom (although he doesn't know that there are food shortages back home, and that Kezia's cooking is imaginary). In return, Tom writes about how he misses Kezia, and what he'd change about her cooking, rather than about the rats in the trenches and the sergeant who has it in for him.

The letters are engaging, connecting the reader to Tom and Kezia through meals that they aren't actually eating. And somehow, the beauty of their carefully managed lies transcends the inevitable tragedy that war brings to the Brissendens. Maisie Dobbs fans won't be the only ones to enjoy this quiet novel; the centenary of the Great War is honored in truly fitting fashion by The Care and Management of Lies. --Jessica Howard, blogger at Quirky Bookworm

We follow their diets, read their lifestyle tips and pore over their designer outfits in magazines. But can we really model our lives after our favorite celebrities? And will we be happier if we do? Stuck in a personal slump, Rachel Bertsche (MWF Seeking BFF) decided to find out.

Jennifer, Gwyneth & Me chronicles Bertsche's attempt to make over her life by following the wisdom of various celebrity role models. She starts with Jennifer Aniston's workouts, and moves on to Gwyneth Paltrow's cookbook, Jennifer Garner's marriage and Julia Roberts's brand of Zen (for starters). As Bertsche sweats to workout videos, whips up gag-inducing green smoothies and even wears a purple tutu in public, she muses on the lure of celebrity culture and the recent shift toward treating movie stars as lifestyle experts. She also shares another, deeply personal struggle: the long, nerve-racking journey toward pregnancy and motherhood.

Of course, Bertsche can't emulate her favorite stars exactly: many celebrity indulgences aren't accessible on a middle-class budget. And while trying Gwyneth's recipes and Julia's meditation routine is fun for a few weeks, it's impossible to maintain multiple celebrity regimens in the long run. But Bertsche's project does yield a few nuggets of wisdom, plus some workout and fashion tips, which she's happy to share with fellow celebrity wannabes.

Funny, engaging and wise, Bertsche's journey reflects both the cultural obsession with our favorite stars and the real-life quest of every woman to be happy, healthy and fulfilled. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams

His fellow soldiers called him "Uncle Billy." To them, William Tecumseh Sherman was a general who cared deeply about them and who understood that war was a dirty but necessary job--as he famously said, "War is hell." Eschewing a chronological approach, Robert L. O'Connell (The Ghosts of Cannae) breaks Sherman's life down into three parts, each revealing different aspects of his personality: the military strategist, the general and the human being.

Sherman seemed to possess a "warlike wizardry," with an innate sense of geography; he could instantly memorize any piece of land and knew where to fight and where not to. After graduating from West Point as a second lieutenant, he got his first taste of combat fighting in Florida's Second Seminole War. He pored over available maps better to understand the local topography and thus employed his troops more efficiently; he did his job well and was promoted to first lieutenant. Thereafter he was posted to a variety of places around the country, and then the Civil War broke out. He took Secession personally and fought fiercely, relentlessly driving the Confederates back in Mississippi, Georgia, the Carolinas, leaving scorched land behind.

As an officer, he demonstrated how to adapt and how to command a mostly ragged army of volunteers. As a man, he loved crowds and ceremonies, the theater, talk and women. Unlike his friend Ulysses S. Grant, Sherman hated politics; he preferred soldiering. O'Connell's lively narrative shows us Sherman as a brilliant and flawed man, a professional solder and no saint. --Tom Lavoie, former publisher

The ability to disseminate digital information on a global scale (i.e., the Internet) has transformed human civilization as fundamentally as did the invention of writing or the printing press. Yet, as Charles Seife (Zero; Proofiness) shows in Virtual Unreality, this revolution has also turned communication into a quagmire of falsehoods and predatory behavior. It should come as no surprise that the Web is riddled with hoaxes and scams, but the true breadth of this unreality is terrifying (if sometimes also amusing). Take, for example, the desperate men duped into pursuing months-long online relationships with "women" who are actually chat programs. Less humorous are the barrages of financial scams and media manipulation cluttering our daily Internet use.

Seife shows how the digital age has eviscerated not only traditional journalism, but even basic journalistic standards. Plagiarism is easier than ever, and even borderline plagiarism is acceptable for "news aggregators," sites that rely chiefly on external content instead of original reporting (like Google News or the Huffington Post). The Internet is even shaping news itself. "Search engine optimization," the strategic use of keywords (among other techniques) to achieve high ranking in Google results, means content is created to appease algorithms instead of people. Seife also analyzes Amazon's self-publishing push, with examples that might be funny if they didn't involve fraud and plummeting editorial standards.

Virtual Unreality should appeal to readers with any level of technological literacy, though avid Internet users will more easily relate to the issues Seife explores. He even includes tips for avoiding scams and dubious sources of information. --Tobias Mutter, freelance reviewer

In this first YA thriller in a planned series, adult author John Sandford and his wife, Michelle Cook, deliver an edge-of-the-seat thriller starring characters we can root for, set in a slightly futuristic world with a chilling premise.

Odin, a genius hacker and animal rights activist, helps break into Singular, a bio-medical research lab, and is horrified to find experiments on live animals and possibly on humans. He narrowly escapes capture, steals some thumb drives and rescues a post-operative dog near death. Odin's 16-year-old sister, Shay, searches for Odin in Los Angeles. She lands in a hostel run by a well-known artist and political provocateur--and finds that she fits right in with the bunch of misfits and former runaways. Shay enlists the help of her new friends to rescue Odin and to expose the dangerous and well-funded Singular.

The authors deliver a fast-paced contemporary action thriller. They populate the story with diverse, well-crafted characters, and reveal them through thoughtful dialogue. Uncaged may be plot-driven, but it is also concerned with activism and animal rights, and gives readers an authentic portrait of vulnerable teens. From a car chase through Malibu to the iconic Hollywood sign, Sandford and Cook offer a realistic and exciting Los Angeles fraught with high-stakes peril. --Nan Shipley, literary scout

In this factual, playfully illustrated picture book, children who visit the zoo will be surprised and delighted to discover that they're in good company--thousands of years' worth of company.
 
"The world's first known zoo" was in the Sumerian City of Ur, in present-day Iraq, 4,400 years ago. The king of Ur roared at the lion he kept in his zoo, which made him feel "like the ruler of all nature." Krull skips around the globe to identify other zoos and the purposes they served: Queen Hatshepsut showed off her zoo of "expensive" animals in Ethiopia 3,500 years ago; 3,000 years ago in China, a "vast zoo" called "The Garden of Intelligence" was a sacred space for Emperor Wen-Wang. Marcellus Hall's (Everyone Sleeps) animals are the only things that are not exotic. Young readers will pick out the cheetahs, goats, yaks and turtles in the pictures, and if an animal here or there does not make it into the illustration, kids can easily look it up in Kathleen Krull's (the Lives Of series) abundant hard-copy and online sources. Krull also ties in the inspirations these zoos served, such as Aristotle's The History of Animals and System of Nature by Carl Linnaeus, in which he classified animals into species. Animal lovers will be especially pleased that the U.S. National Zoo was the first to claim a mission to protect animals under threat of extinction in 1889.

Zoo fans will love learning they're part of a continuum of children that stretches back longer than eyes can see. --Jennifer M. Brown, children's editor, Shelf Awareness