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There are plenty of pungent goings-on at Five Spice Street, the odd locale ruled by an enigmatic “Madam X” in Xue's first novel-length work to be published in English. No one knows the age of Madam X, who holds undeniable sway over those around her. She's romantically linked to Mr. Q (a letter-perfect match, no doubt). Inhabitants of Spice Street find an ally in a woman known only as “the widow,” who probes the lives of Madam X and Mr. Q, drawing brazen, albeit unjustified, conclusions about the pair. Who is the mysterious Madam X? Is she a mistress of the occult or merely a modern-day manipulator? What is it about her that prompts others to probe their souls? Xue (Dialogues in Paradise, 1989) is the pseudonym of Chinese novelist and short-story writer Deng Xiaohua. Here she blends surrealism à la Dali with a hefty dose of existential angst. Prickly and provocative, Five Spice Street poses penetrating questions about the search for identity and the definition of self.

A tiny girl is abandoned on a ship headed for Australia in 1913. She arrives completely alone with nothing but a small suitcase containing a few clothes and a single book -- a beautiful volume of fairy tales. She is taken in by the dockmaster and his wife and raised as their own. On her twenty-first birthday they tell her the truth, and with her sense of self shattered and with very little to go on, "Nell" sets out on a journey to England to try to trace her story, to fi nd her real identity. Her quest leads her to Blackhurst Manor on the Cornish coast and the secrets of the doomed Mountrachet family. But it is not until her granddaughter, Cassandra, takes up the search after Nell's death that all the pieces of the puzzle are assembled. At Cliff Cottage, on the grounds of Blackhurst Manor, Cassandra discovers the forgotten garden of the book's title and is able to unlock the secrets of the beautiful book of fairy tales.

Historical fantasist Graham (Black Ships) heads to Egypt with this elegant, engaging memoir of Charmian, half-sister and handmaiden to Cleopatra. The two young women and their other sister, Iras, are inseparable from childhood, getting one another into and out of numerous mishaps. As teenagers, they vow to Isis that they will protect Egypt from the covetous Romans, and in return for their devotion, the goddess rewards Cleopatra with the throne. Graham never resorts to melodrama even at the murder of Julius Caesar or to cliché when Charmian recalls her past lives, and she supplies plenty of superb historical detail, but doesn't let it overwhelm the narrative. Charmian's shy hopes, failures and devotion to Cleopatra and Isis make her one of the most memorable witnesses to history to emerge from fantasy in quite some time.

John Porter's horrific memories of his service in the Vietnam War have been dormant for nearly 40 years. But a brief encounter with an old enemy reopens old wounds. Now that he's displaying alarming signs of post-traumatic stress disorder, his daughter, Katie, vows to bring her father peace. But a weekend trip to a veterans ceremony intended to bring closure instead unknowingly sparks a chain of events that lead John and Katie to a Vietnamese woman named Doan Vien, who befriended John during the war. Doan Vien and her daughter, Lisa Le, disclose long-held secrets that threaten to unravel both families. This intricate story unfolds slowly from Katie and Lisa's points of view, but it is also interspersed with John's disturbing memories. Cleverly, Seitz offers only the tiniest of clues until finally serving up the final resolution. A heartbreaking tale that sheds light on love, friendship, and faith powerful enough to endure the atrocities of war. --Annie McCormick

When 30-year-old archaeologist Alex Voormann's bright, ambitious wife, Isabel, is killed in a bicycle accident, he is faced with a momentous decision. She had filled out a donor card, and the hospital staff are requesting his permission to take her heart for a woman who would die without a transplant. Even a full year after he signed off on the procedure, Alex is still conflicted about the decision, so when Janet Corcoran, the mother of two whose life Isabel saved, contacts him, he becomes angry. Her gratefulness reminds him all over again of his grievous loss, and he can't help but feel resentful that her good fortune came at his expense; meanwhile, his mother-in-law has a totally different reaction, believing that her daughter's generous spirit lives on in Janet. Author Lovely patiently and tenderly details all of the emotions of his principal characters as they deal with grief, loss, and survivor's guilt. A sensitive debut novel that assiduously avoids the sentimental while facing up to the difficulties of finding one's way back to emotional and physical health. --Joanne Wilkinson

Two masters of the horror genre team up for the second time (following Mind the Gap, 2008) in another Hidden Cities tale. History professor Max Corbett left Tulane after his affair with beautiful, passionate student Gabrielle Doucette ended in heartbreak when Gabrielle cheated on him. Six months later, Max returns to New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina to attend Gabrielle's funeral. As he wanders the decimated city trying to work out his complex feelings for the woman he still loves, Max is approached by Ray, an older man who offers him the chance to save Gabrielle. Ray gives Max a potion to drink and a “Map of Moments,” setting him off on a quest to find a man named Matrisse. Skeptical at first, Max soon finds himself on a journey that both reveals New Orleans' past and puts him in peril. Golden and Lebbon vividly evoke the rich, enduring character of New Orleans, as well as spinning a compelling fantasy yarn that builds momentum as Max works his way through the city's history. --Kristine Huntley

Abigail Bennett lives a quiet, ordered life; she has to, in order to keep herself from being drawn into the barely controlled chaos that is her sister Hailey's life. Always emotionally up and down, ready to break into hysterics at the drop of a hat, Hailey is finally diagnosed with bipolar disorder in her early teens. Being with Hailey is stressful, painful, and exasperating, and Abigail has always been the only one in her family to deal with Hailey's problems, rather than just hoping they'll go away if they're not spoken of. Things seem to be calming down and looking optimistic when Hailey commits suicide. Stunned and looking for answers, Abigail finds one in the suicide note: "It wasn't you, it was Tyler." Abigail dedicates herself to finding Tyler so she can figure out what exactly he did to Hailey, and how she's going to deal with him. A taut, engrossing story about familial love and redemption. --Hilary Hatton

In The Music Teacher, a penetrating and richly entertaining look into the heart and mind of a woman who has failed both as an artist and as a wife, Barbara Hall, award-winning creator and writer of such hit television series as Judging Amy and Joan of Arcadia, tells the story of a violinist who has accepted the limitations of her talent and looks for the casual satisfaction of trying to instill her passion for music in others. She gets more than she bargains for, however, when a young girl named Hallie enters her life. For here at last is the real thing: someone with the talent and potential to be truly great. In her drive to shape this young girl into the artist the teacher could never be, she makes one terrible mistake. As a result she is forced to reevaluate her whole life and come to terms with her future. Hall has crafted a thoroughly engrossing novel that examines the pitfalls of failure and holds up a mirror to the face of a culture that places success and achievement above all else

After Tree of Smoke (2007), Johnson's meaty (and National Book Award-winning) Vietnam opus, this slim crime novel, first published serially in the pages of Playboy, might seem a mere digestif—but, if so, it's a drink for someone who likes to knock back three fingers of whiskey after a drive-through dinner of cheeseburgers and fries. Set in the margins of California's Central Valley, a milieu that in some ways recalls Already Dead (1997), this pinballing tale concerns Jimmy Luntz, a compulsive gambler who owes money; Gambol, Juarez, and the Tall Man, the loan sharks who want to collect; and Anita Desilvera, an alcoholic knockout plotting to steal the money she's been framed for embezzling. Revenge-minded lowlifes clawing for cash constitute a classic crime trope but, as with the most satisfying crime fiction, plot is tertiary to character and setting. Readers won't know who will win—Will it be the ballsy gambler or the psycho who wants to eat the gambler's balls?—indeed, they may not even know who they're rooting for. But getting there is all the fun, with dry dialogue and surprising turns of phrase all adding up to something that seems both fresh and inevitable. Fans of Jim Thompson, Elmore Leonard, Barry Gifford, and even David Lynch (who, after all, filmed Gifford's Wild at Heart) will all find something to savor. --Keir Graff

Yoon's collection of eight richly textured stories explore the themes of family, lost love, silence, alienation and the effects of the Japanese occupation and the Korean War on the poor communities of a small South Korean island. In the namesake story, a lonely young waiter connects with an American widow who has come to find the cave where her husband claimed to have carved their initials during his tour of duty in Korea. The narrator shifts between Jim coping with the loss of his big brother, a fisherman killed by a surfacing American submarine, and the sorrow of the widow. In Among the Wreckage, aging parents Bey and Soni hope to recover the body of their son, Karo, killed in a U.S. military bombing test on what was thought to be a deserted island. The sad journey provides Bey an opportunity to examine his inability to show affection to his wife and only child. Yoon's stories are introspective and tender while also painting with bold strokes the details of the lives of the invisible.

Ohio farmboy John Rayburn is a high-school senior with relatively mundane concerns when, claiming to be from an alternate universe, his doppelganger, John Prime, shows up. The temptation to try out Prime's universe-surfing device proves too great to resist, but, unfortunately, John discovers too late what Prime neglected to mention, that the thing works only one-way. Prime moved quite comfortably, into John's life, with grand plans to market something his universe has and John's doesn't, a Rubik's cube. Meanwhile, John has found a universe remarkably like his home, minus a version of himself, and enrolls at the University of Toledo as a physics major, figuring he'll eventually be able to reverse-engineer the device. He accidentally invents pinball, which, thanks to his lab partners' entrepreneurial genius, is a big hit. But unsavory sorts know it didn't originate in this universe. Thrills ensue, for both John and Prime have attracted dangerous attention from other travellers between universes. Melko handles the struggles of young adulthood and universe-spanning conflict with equal vigor in this wildly entertaining yarn. --Regina Schroeder

In the years following the sudden death of their seven-year-old son, Benny, Michigan residents Frank and Ellie Benton have witnessed the steady deterioration of their marriage. So when Frank's boss offers him a position overseeing a company factory in the rural Indian city of Girbaug, Ellie convinces her husband it's just the change they both need. From the start, Ellie, a therapist, basks in her new life, making friends with townspeople and volunteering her services at a nearby clinic. But Frank's work brings endless grief. His company, Herbal Solutions, has taken over land containing trees that locals have long harvested for their medicinal properties. (One Girbaug resident is so despondent over his loss of income, he takes his own life.) Frank's world brightens when he befriends Ramesh, the charming, inquisitive son of the Bentons' housekeeper and cook. Ramesh soon becomes a surrogate for Benny in a relationship that simultaneously boosts Frank's spirits and breaks his heart. Umrigar (First Darling of the Morning, 2008) renders melancholy novels that resonate with rich prose and vibrant depictions of India, where she spent the first 21 years of her life before moving to the States. The Weight of Heaven is a bold, beautifully rendered tale of cultures that clash and coalesce. --Allison Block

Hugo and Nebula Award-winner Beagle showcases his narrative breadth in this eclectic new collection with nine powerful fantasy tales and a short set of poems based on the famous Unicorn Tapestries. In the title story, one benevolent sibling must somehow stop another from becoming the Angel of Death. The Last and Only, or, Mr. Moscowitz Becomes French explores the significance of identity as a mild-mannered American librarian irrevocably transforms into the last true Frenchman, while the profoundly moving King Pelles the Sure denounces the insanity of war. The most memorable selection is The Stickball Witch, in which a group of Bronx boys playing stickball come face to face with the suspected witch of their neighborhood. Impressively diverse themes, styles and subject matter make this collection addictive.

Newly minted veterinarian Wells is on one of his first calls—a cow trying to deliver a dead calf—when after two hours of unceasing labor, he decides to try another approach, and one of the onlooking farmers says, “That's what you should have done to begin with!” So begins the education of a young vet, the on-the-job training that no amount of schooling can provide. Chasing a calving cow around a pasture with no assistance from his technician (she was embarrassed to move—she'd laughed so hard she'd wet her pants), fending off the attacks of three “watch turkeys,” frightening truckers with his blood-soaked hands after stitching up a horse, or easing the passing of a cancer-ridden cat, Wells began to hone his skills. A move to Colorado didn't immediately improve his finances but did improve his buffalo-wrangling skills and his ability to remove porcupine quills from overzealous dogs and donkeys. Another winning veterinary memoir deserving of space next to the immortal James Herriot and his heirs. --Nancy Bent

From his daring 1965 jail break at age 22 to his legendary career pilfering treasures from museums all over New England, Connor's life is the stuff of adventure novels. Now, with the aid of novelist Siler, the notorious art thief recounts his scores and sets the record straight on one of the biggest art heists ever—at Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. The son of a cop, Connor grew up outside Boston. He developed a genuine appreciation for art—especially samurai swords—and after his first robbery, at the Forbes Museum in Milton, Mass., he never looked back. He stole a Rembrandt from Boston's Museum of Fine Arts in broad daylight and used it as a bargaining tool for a decreased prison sentence. Connor compares himself to Robin Hood: an art-world rogue who took pains to avoid violence and truly admired the pieces he stole. When asked whether he masterminded the Gardner heist, despite being behind bars at the time, he replied: You would have known it was me. I would have taken the Titian.

Wangari Maathai, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and founder of the Green Belt Movement, offers a refreshingly unique perspective on the challenges facing Africa, even as she calls for a moral revolution among Africans themselves, who, she argues, are culturally deracinated, adrift between worlds. The troubles of Africa today are severe and wide-ranging. Yet what we see of them in the media, more often than not, are tableaux vivantes connoting poverty, dependence, and desperation. Wangari Maathai presents a different vision, informed by her three decades as an environmental activist and campaigner for democracy. She illuminates the complex and dynamic nature of the continent, and offers “hardheaded hope” and “realistic options” for change and improvement. With clarity of expression, Maathai analyzes the most egregious “bottlenecks to development in Africa,” occurring at the international, national, and individual levels--cultural upheaval and enduring poverty among them--and deftly describes what Africans can and need to do for themselves, stressing all the while responsibility and accountability.

After eviscerating everyone from filmmakers to sports fans, cultural critic and humorist Queenan takes the hatchet to himself in this memoir of growing up poor in Philadelphia. The book is dominated by Queenan's Irish Catholic father, the “lunatic-in-chief” who routinely loses several jobs per year and takes out his frustrations with copious amounts of booze and violent strappings of his brood. It is this relationship that frames the rest of Queenan's youth, from the part-time job supervisors who become surrogate fathers to the misguided stab at seminary school as a means to escape the belt. Along the way, Queenan catalogs poverty with a specificity that is nearly exhausting; there's no romance here, only the banal and frequently hilarious chronicling of the indignity of off-brand Fig Newtons and generic versions of hit records. Queenan never met a synonym he didn't like (in under three pages, a jail is a hoosegow, calaboose, slammer, and pokey), but this loquaciousness evokes the ludicrous nature of his upbringing while providing humor few others could bring to such dark material. As is often the case with memoirs, Queenan's latter years are less riveting, but his adolescence will have readers crying tears of both sorrow and hilarity. --Daniel Kraus

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Sheeler (Obit: Inspirational Stories of People Who Led Extraordinary Lives) pays eloquent tribute to the soldiers who have died in Iraq and their devastated families. The author spent two years shadowing Maj. Steve Beck, a marine in charge of casualty notification, as he delivered the news of battlefield death to families. Sheeler puts readers in Beck's shoes as he walks up to houses, delivers the knock on the door so dreaded by military families and tries to comfort distraught spouses and parents. Sheeler provides intimate sketches of the fallen soldiers—like Marine Staff Sgt. Sam Holder, who died while drawing enemy fire away from an injured comrade—and follows up as grieving families try to put their lives back together. The children left behind are often the most tragic figures: the young son of army PFC Jesse Givens asks if he can be a little boy again when he goes to heaven so that he can play with his dad. Dedicated to everyone who opened the door, Sheeler's book is a devastating account of the sacrifices military families make and should be required reading for all Americans.

In this intense, polished account, the Austin, Tex., parents of an autistic boy trek to the Mongolian steppes to consult shamans in a last-ditch effort to alter his unraveling behavior. Author Isaacson (The Healing Land) and his wife, Kristin, a psychology professor, were told that the developmental delays of their young son, Rowan, were caused by autism. Floored, the parents scrambled to find therapy, which was costly and seemed punitive, when Isaacson, an experienced rider and trainer of horses from his youth in England, hoisted Rowan up in the saddle with him and took therapeutic rides on Betsy, the neighbor's horse. The repetitive rocking and balance stimulation boosted Rowan's language ability; inspired by the results, as well as encouraged by such experts as Temple Grandin and Isaacson's own experience working with African shamans, Isaacson hit on the self-described crazy idea of taking Rowan to the original horse people, the Mongolians, and find shamans who could help heal their son. The family went in July, accompanied conveniently by a film crew and van, which five-year-old Rowan often refused to leave, and over several rugged weeks rode up mountains, forded rivers and camped, while enduring strange shamanic ceremonies. Isaacson records heartening improvement in Rowan's firestormlike tantrums and incontinence, as he taps into an ancient, valuable form of spirit healing.

In his excellent introduction to this language book, Keyes defines retrotalk as a “slippery slope of puzzling allusions to past phenomena,” allusions that employ terms he refers to as “verbal artifacts,” or phrases that hang around in our national conversation long after the topic they refer to has vanished from memory. Hard as it may be for those of a certain age to acknowledge, young people no longer understand references to 45 rpms, breadboxes, and Ma Bell. In addition, one's comparisons also often fall along generational lines, as talking-head David Brooks discovered when he compared Hillary Clinton's first debate performance to Emily Post and her second to Howard Beale. The names of the mistress of etiquette and the raving anchorman from the movie Network do not resonate with anyone younger than 50. The bulk of Keyes' book is devoted to a pedestrian listing of such words and phrases and their origins, grouped in chapters related to the venues, such as boxing, politicians, movies, and comics, that gave rise to the terms. Still, the list makes addictive reading for word nerds and informative browsing for everyone else.

You think you've heard it all: the roundups, deportations, transports, selections, hard labor, death camps (“That was the last time I saw my father”), crematoriums, and the rare miracle of survival. But this one is different. The clear, nonhectoring prose makes Buergenthal's personal story--and the enduring ethical questions it prompts--the stuff of a fast, gripping read. Five years old in Czechoslovakia at the start of World War II, Buergenthal remembers being crowded into the ghetto and then, in 1944, feeling “lucky” to escape the gas chambers and get into Auschwitz, where he witnessed daily hangings and beatings, but with the help of a few adults, managed to survive. In a postwar orphanage, he learned to read and write but never received any mail, until in a heartrending climax, his mother finds him. In 1952, he immigrated to the U.S., and now, as human-rights lawyer, professor, and international judge, his childhood's moral issues are rooted in his daily life, his tattooed number a reminder not so much of the past as of his obligation, as witness and survivor, to fight bigotry today.

They were young, brilliant, and bold. They set out to conquer the world. But the world had other plans for them. Bestselling author Susan Jane Gilman's new memoir is a hilarious and harrowing journey, a modern heart of darkness filled with Communist operatives, backpackers, and pancakes. In 1986, fresh out of college, Gilman and her friend Claire yearned to do something daring and original that did not involve getting a job. Inspired by a place mat at the International House of Pancakes, they decided to embark on an ambitious trip around the globe, starting in the People's Republic of China. At that point, China had been open to independent travelers for roughly ten minutes. Armed only with the collected works of Nietzsche, an astrological love guide, and an arsenal of bravado, the two friends plunged into the dusty streets of Shanghai. Unsurprisingly, they quickly found themselves in over their heads. As they ventured off the map deep into Chinese territory, they were stripped of everything familiar and forced to confront their limitations amid culture shock and government surveillance. What began as a journey full of humor, eroticism, and enlightenment grew increasingly sinister-becoming a real-life international thriller that transformed them forever. Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven is a flat-out page-turner, an astonishing true story of hubris and redemption told with Gilman's trademark compassion, lyricism, and wit.

At the outset, this has the feel of a cozy mystery about an art caper of a century ago. Scotti, brisk and irreverent, introduces characters with a keen eye for quirky traits, and enticingly sets the scene, the Louvre on an August Sunday of stupefying heat. The fact that this is a covertly informative work of entertaining narrative nonfiction only adds to its impact. Scotti, whose Basilica (2006) chronicled the building of St. Peter's, has reopened one of the most delectable unsolved cases in the annals of art crime: the 1911 theft of Mona Lisa. The lovely woman with the enigmatic smile was simply lifted off the wall and spirited away. The scandal was immense, the investigation feverish, the headlines screaming, and Scotti revels in every turn. Her lively, expert coverage encompasses the fascinating, many-chaptered story of Mona Lisa and ironic revelations about the frenzy among America's robber barons for old masters and the corresponding renaissance in art fraud. Then there are the two unlikely suspects, Pablo Picasso and poet and critic Guillaume Apollinaire. Leonardo's masterpiece was recovered after two frantic years, but the full story of Mona Lisa's abduction is yet to be told. Scotti's avid, exciting true-life mystery yields intriguing disclosures and reaffirms Mona Lisa's unique powers.