No matter how much it changes, no matter how far it's come, a city will always be shaped by its past. German writer and filmmaker Rudolph Herzog (A Short History of Nuclear Folly) delivers a splendid and eerie collection of short fiction set at the epicenter of Germany's wildest history in Ghosts of Berlin.

In the vibrant, cosmopolitan 21st century, Berlin and its denizens still grapple with memories of fearsome, mournful events dating back to when the Nazis ruled and when the Stasi lurked. Beginning with "Tandem," the collection sets an assured pace. Dimitri, a young Greek professional with a history of asthma, relocates to Berlin for a promising new employment opportunity. As he settles in, he looks for a language partner to help him brush up on his German. Lotte connects with him immediately--she's a pleasant if mildly unnerving woman of indeterminate age who nurtures a strong preoccupation with Greece. Before long, the guilt she feels for the Nazi occupation of Dimitri's country bursts to the surface, manifesting before his eyes with shocking severity.

Herzog has a knack for summoning the uncanny into otherwise austere, modern settings, and further twisting its presence into a foreboding paranoia. The merciless onslaught of gentrification conjures a certain type of poltergeist inside an unsuspecting tenant's new apartment in the collection's most traditional ghost story, "Ifrit." A shrewd and provocative collection of fiction, Ghosts of Berlin is translated into English by the equally sharp Emma Rault. The plots are thick, and the twists are powerful. Be sure to check the closets and under the bed before the lights go out. --Dave Wheeler, associate editor, Shelf Awareness

The short fiction of mid-century author Nancy Hale (The Prodigal Women) has been resurrected to astonishing effect in Where the Light Falls: Selected Stories of Nancy Hale.

Editor Lauren Groff (Florida), in an insightful introduction, argues that Hale is an important 20th-century writer often overlooked in the male-dominated canon. Groff likens Hale's style to a literary "chiaroscuro," and, indeed, these 25 stories reveal a writer equipped with a painterly sensibility. (Many of them first appeared in the New Yorker.) Like her contemporaries Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald, Hale chronicles American life with directness and keen insight, providing a picture of society in many stages.

Her stories, however, place women at the center. "Midsummer," for example, explores female sexual desire in tantalizing poetic detail. "That Woman" focuses on Southern culture and how a woman's honor is controlled by deeply entrenched patriarchal views. And before "mansplaining" was even a word, Hale was writing about it in "Book Review," in which chauvinistic men shoot down a woman's thoughtful commentary. The standout story is "Who Lived and Died Believing." Harrowing and haunting, it features a woman in a psychiatric hospital succumbing to madness. Hale plunges into the internal stream-of-consciousness of the afflicted character à la Virginia Woolf or William Faulkner. As the woman's mind deteriorates, she clings to a vision of love: "It still endured, somewhere, upon the fading world."

Where the Light Falls showcases the work of a versatile and important writer. Though Hale is no longer with us, her stories are timeless. --Scott Neuffer, writer, poet, editor of trampset

"Things just keep changing," a father laments to his son in "House of Sully," the centerpiece novella in Edward J. Delaney's pained, searching second collection of short fiction (after The Drowning). The Big Impossible concerns men adrift in an inconstant United States, uncertain of their place or their value, often reflecting on their lives in spare prose that soars even as it mourns.

Delaney (Follow the Sun) is adept at the telling detail, at the texture of bygone days: "House of Sully" summons the anxieties of a white family facing the tumult (and new freedoms) of 1968 with an attentive eye to fashion and integration. The marvelous "Big Impossible," meanwhile, punctures romantic fantasies of the rambling life, following a drifter's hardscrabble path from itinerant farm work in 1959 to decades later, as he nurtures the tentative roots he's finally planted. Delaney proves especially strong at depicting regret; his men, uneasy in changing times, tend not to open up to family or mingle well at parties. "My sisters were invisible to me then," notes one narrator, "simply strangers in the household to whom I assigned little attention." Ruminative standouts "Clean" and "Street View" compress decades into pages, the latter's flights of memory aided by Mapquest and Google. Only "David," about a present-day teenager bullied into terrible, predictable violence, lacks the rich specificity that is Delaney's hallmark. That story, though, builds to a bold argument for the power of fiction itself, insisting that nothing stirs empathy like urgent humanist literature. --Alan Scherstuhl, freelance writer and editor

Three contemporary women across the world are unaware of how their lives intersect in Laetitia Colombani's The Braid, translated from the French by Louise Rogers Lalaurie. As the women face existential obstacles, their search for solutions links their lives forever.

Smita is an untouchable in India. She cleans toilets for upper castes and, improbably, dreams of educating her daughter so she can escape a lifetime of degradation. "Smita has no desire to wait for the next life. It's this life, here and now, that she wants, for herself and Lalita." In Sicily, after her father's death, Giulia takes over her family's "cascatura" shop, the tradition of making wigs from human hair. She discovers that the business is teetering on bankruptcy. Vowing to keep it afloat, Giulia reminds herself "that she would carry on, that she would not give in to pain and exhaustion."

Sarah, a Canadian lawyer who's achieved success by keeping her personal life private, is diagnosed with cancer. She attempts to keep this secret, believing that any sign of weakness will interfere with her job: "Like the heroine of a spy novel, Sarah would wage war underground." But this plan spectacularly backfires, and she faces the ultimate test of her worth when it does. Colombani weaves the lives of these three women together in a startling and ingenious way. The author sensitively shows how women everywhere are connected by their struggles against society's expectations. Readers who enjoy a fast-paced story with strong female characters will enjoy this debut novel. --Cindy Pauldine, bookseller, the river's end bookstore, Oswego, N.Y.

Future Tense Fiction collects 14 cutting-edge stories in which standout authors of the speculative genre imagine various futures. In "Mother of Invention," Nnedi Okorafor keeps readers bedside with an inventor's mistress as she goes into labor, assisted only by his castoff Smart Home. Meanwhile, in "Mr. Thursday," Emily St. John Mandel follows a time-traveling businessman on an ill-fated mission to save a 20th-century secretary. Genetically enhanced Olympic athletes, data-risk assessors and their counterpart assassins, and socialist utopias gone wrong are just a few of the highlights from these wide and varied tales.

Including a neo-noir featuring sex robots who just want to be real girls and a tender meditation on how neurological bridges can keep loved ones alive in disembodied memories, this anthology offers a range of tones, atmospheres and imaginative horizons. Often comical and always prescient, these stories are at their best when their pitch-perfect prose and emotionally resonant characters outshine their showstopping plots. Madeline Ashby offers the noteworthy "Domestic Violence," a caustic revenge fantasy in which house tech becomes a tool of both an abuser and the abused, while Charlie Jane Anders's "The Minnesota Diet" is among the collection's most brilliant and disturbing visions of the world to come. In sparse, no-nonsense prose, Anders depicts the downfall of New Lincoln, a Smart City that deems the extinction of its own population necessary. Ultimately, it is not the destruction of the town, but the desperation of its inhabitants that will linger with readers. Together, these stories inspire excitement over the endless possibilities the speculative genre has to offer. --Alice Martin, freelance writer and editor

When he agreed to be guardian to his business partner's daughter, Englishman Jonathan Deverill was under the impression she was a child. When his partner dies and he finds out the truth, it disrupts his plans to leave her at the school where he meets her. American teacher Marjorie hadn't seen her father in years and refuses to mourn a man she barely knew. She sees her inheritance as an opportunity to experience life outside the confines of the academy. Not willing to be left behind, Marjorie defies Jonathan's rules and follows him to England. Between the close confines of the ship and their maddening attraction to each other, both parties enter in a slow dance toward romance.

In Laura Lee Guhrke's fourth installment in the Dear Lady Truelove series, Heiress Gone Wild, Marjorie's life is just beginning while Jonathan's is at a standstill. Her wish to experience traditional courtship is at odds with her desire to be with him. Jonathan is torn between his new life as a self-made man and his previous dream to run the family's publishing house. Jonathan can seem cruel at times, as he handles his attraction to Marjorie by continually pushing her away and making her adhere to conservative English mourning traditions. But ultimately his feelings for Marjorie and his slow personal growth make him the man that Marjorie wanted all along. Their love story, along with the return of Jonathan's warm and kind family (met in the previous books) make this a welcome finale to the series. --Amy Dittmeier, adult services librarian, Brookfield Public Library, Ill.

Even rock stars had bullies. In their co-written memoir High School, Canadian rockers and LGBTQ icons Tegan and Sara Quin invite readers into the aches and agonies of their pre-fame teen years.

The sisters begin at the start of 10th grade, recalling pockets of acceptance among fellow outcasts. Told in chapters alternating from each of their points of view, High School sees the Quins through moments of huge terrors and tiny victories: admitting crushes, experimenting with their sexuality, unrequited love. Together and separately, they navigate the cold landscape of 1990s Calgary, and the emotional landscape of developing their individual identities as identical twins.

Independence comes in spurts and jolts, accounted for in 7-Eleven Slurpees bought with pilfered coins, tabs of acid swallowed in bathroom stalls and, eventually, standing up to the bullies on the bus. Music becomes the twins' oxygen; grunge, rave and punk offer connection, community. Making their own music is the next step, though the two actually began playing separately, each surreptitiously borrowing their stepdad's guitar, strumming alone.

Apropos of the Quins' approach to music, High School feels fresh, raw, beautiful and unpredictable. The writing sings, with stories bouncing and weaving through time. As the twins listen to a new Smashing Pumpkins album, Sara recalls the feelings it evoked: "Nothing had ever sounded more important to me." This memoir will inspire similar devotion from fans or any readers seeking a window into the pains and pleasures of self-discovery, coming of age and coming out. --Katie Weed, freelance writer and reviewer

Mohamed Abdulkarim Ali was born in Mogadishu, Somalia, in the mid-1980s; he was stolen away from his home at age four by his father, a stranger to the young boy. With his stepmother and several new siblings, the young Ali lived for a time in the United Arab Emirates and in various cities in the Netherlands. When he was in high school, the disjointed family relocated again to Toronto, where Ali still lives, writing Angry Queer Somali Boy: A Complicated Memoir from a homeless shelter.

The traumas start early, with the national distresses of Somalia represented by Ali's socialist grandparents and his mostly absent businessman father. Ali's stepmother and stepsisters are violently abusive toward him and toward each other. He suffers in the increasingly white countries he is moved to, as an immigrant, foreigner, African. Bullied at school, he must also deal with discovering his sexuality in an immigrant Muslim family disinclined to accept a gay son. Eventually, his coping mechanisms for these and other difficulties include addictions to Valium and alcohol.

His book is filled with suffering, but Ali avoids self-pity with his matter-of-fact reportorial style and the odd, acerbic interjection. His focus is global as well as personal, as he considers Somali history, colorism within nonwhite communities, the way one marginalized group can abuse another, and observed trends in racism, homophobia and xenophobia. Angry Queer Somali Boy is painful but recommended reading for anyone hoping to look directly at this world. --Julia Kastner, librarian and blogger at pagesofjulia

Megan Phelps-Roper grew up as a cherished daughter of Topeka's Westboro Baptist Church, notorious for its inflammatory rhetoric and protest signs. The third of 11 children, she joined her first picket line at age five, and spent her childhood and adolescence fervently spreading--and believing in the rightness of--Westboro's message. But in her 20s, her engagement with Westboro's critics on social media made her wonder if the church had a monopoly on rightness.

Her memoir, Unfollow, chronicles her upbringing in her family and the church (which comprised many of the same people), the years she spent working for the church alongside her mother and her gradual disillusionment with, and detachment from, her former community. Now an activist and speaker who encourages thoughtful dialogue among those who disagree, Phelps-Roper paints a nuanced portrait of Westboro as a group of human beings capable of both spreading hate-filled messages and living out their deep love for one another.

In a time of polarizing rhetoric, Phelps-Roper is a gentle, powerful voice speaking for compassion and thoughtful conversation. She explores the contradictions in Westboro's thinking, and is candid about her own ability (and later her increasing struggle) to gloss over the cognitive dissonance required to remain "faithful." By leaving Westboro and wrestling through several dark, lonely seasons, Phelps-Roper has found her way to a different understanding of the world: one filled with humility and hope instead of hatred. Unfollow is a fascinating insider's account of life at Westboro and an urgent, timely call for dialogue and understanding. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams

In Daughters of Chivalry: The Forgotten Princesses of King Edward Longshanks, historian Kelcey Wilson-Lee tells the stories of the five daughters of Edward I of England and his first wife, Eleanor of Castile.

Like even the most elite medieval women, Eleanora, Joanna, Margaret, Mary and Elizabeth left a spotty trail in the historical record, most often appearing in official chronicles only in the context of their relationships with the men in their lives. In her first book, Wilson-Lee fleshes out the picture of their lives using a variety of sources--most notably the account records for the various royal households--plus a certain amount of informed speculation.

Wilson-Lee draws portraits of five clearly defined individuals. Joanna, for instance, frequently defied her father and took full advantage of the opportunities accorded to a young, wealthy widow in medieval society. Mary, who entered the convent of Amesbury at the age of six, had a taste for luxury and a gambling habit at odds with her vow of poverty.

At the same time, she places the sisters within the larger context of royal women in the late medieval period, exploring questions of education, marriages (political and otherwise), widowhood, property, travel and political intercession. Like the women she describes, Wilson-Lee never loses sight of the fact that what power these women enjoyed was derived from their relationship to the king, but she fully explores the nature of that power and how they used it. --Pamela Toler, blogging at History in the Margins

In the first essay of The (Other) F Word: A Celebration of the Fat & Fierce, contributor Alex Gino talks about the messages society gives fat people: "I'm bombarded with advertisements from a diet industry that wants me to literally be less, along with media that believes my fat is a moral failing." Gino and more than 30 other writers, models, activists, artists and speakers contributed pieces to this ode to fatness and love, a provocative and enlightening collection of personal essays, prose, poetry and artwork edited by Angie Manfredi. The contributors are queer, cis, disabled, non-disabled, BIPOC (black/Indigenous/people of color), white, younger, older. Some are working to, as one writes, "move the needle of representation in media and entertainment." Others are focused on public perception, personal identity and body positivity. All share one message, though: to become our best selves, we all must rethink our ideas about beauty and worthiness. Multi-genre author Hillary Monahan talks about the exploitation of fat people in horror films who die first because, as the trope goes, "they're essentially asking for it." Fashion and lifestyle website creator Bruce Sturgell tells how he created his own community of "Big Boy" style when he couldn't find one. And writer and body image coach Jes Baker describes how she reclaimed the names she's been called over the years, sharing fun facts about hippos, whales and elephants.

Essay titles and contributor bios are almost as empowering as the pieces themselves. Readers will be buoyed by titles like "From Your Fat Future," "Does this poem make me look fat?" and "The 5 Things You Need to Start Your Very Own Rad Fat Babe Revolution (from Someone Who Knows)." An appendix of "FAT FASHION resources" rounds out this upbeat, forward-thinking compilation. --Emilie Coulter, freelance writer and editor

In August 1954, President Eisenhower signs a law that says Umpqua Regina Petit and the other citizens of her tribe living on the Grand Ronde Indian Reservation in Oregon are "no longer Indian." Though her Chich (grandmother) urges Regina's father to fight, in 1957 he signs up for the Indian Relocation Program: "Daddy called it an opportunity... Chich called it an eviction." The program moves the family to Los Angeles, where Regina interacts with non-Native neighbors and classmates for the first time. Mama says Regina is still Umpqua even if they leave the reservation, but new friends Keith and Addie are baffled that her family doesn't fit the stereotypes they've seen on TV: "What kind of Indians are you? Do you even have a tipi?"

Extensive back matter informs the reader that Indian No More is based on the experiences of debut author Charlene Willing McManis's family. Like Regina, Willing McManis was Umpqua and a member of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde; after her death, the book was completed by Sorell, a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, with the continued help of editor and fellow Cherokee Elise McMullen-Ciotti. Additional paratextual materials include a glossary of Chinuk Wawa (the language of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde) words and a note that explains why the term "Indian" is used throughout the book: it was the "prevailing word" in the 1950s. A heartfelt and meditative exploration of an often-undiscussed time in recent U.S. history, Indian No More wades through complex issues of identity and culture and the preservation of both. Thoughtful and purposeful in its education of readers, McManis and Sorell's collaboration sits proudly within the pantheon of middle-grade books as one fully written and edited by women of the Native Nations. --Kyla Paterno, freelance reviewer