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November 15, 2012 Alice Munro delivers a collection of stories that makes ordinary existence seem extraordinary, from the costly nature of first love to the literal cost of a small-town affair to the love between two strangers who are perfectly unsuited for each other.

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November 14, 2012 The novelist has won the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Booker Prize and the Whitbread Award. His latest novel, however, earns the ire of critic Maureen Corrigan, who usually numbers among McEwan's fans but finds herself dismayed by this book's attitudes toward women.

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November 14, 2012 In 2009, New York Post reporter Susannah Cahalan was hospitalized for one horrific month because of a rare disorder. After recovering, she remembered almost nothing about the ordeal, so she decided to find out what happened. Her new book provides a remarkable reconstruction of the events of her sickness.

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November 14, 2012 Colm Toibin's latest novel reimagines the life and death of Jesus through the eyes of his mother. Elegantly subversive, The Testament of Mary examines the nature of truth and storytelling from the point of view of the world's most famous virgin.

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November 13, 2012 British author Ian McEwan is known for multilayered tales with surprise endings, and his latest novel doesn't disappoint. The story of a Cold War intelligence agent who falls for the target of her investigation is sprinkled with hints of subversive intents, making it a clever bonbon of a book.

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November 8, 2012 Barbara Kingsolver's new novel starts when millions of monarch butterflies alight on a mountain in eastern Tennessee. Yet, as author Brian Kimberling describes, the beautiful winged visitors in the novel reveal both humankind's effect on nature and the nature of humankind.

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November 8, 2012 Cartoonist Ellen Forney documents her bipolar disorder in Marbles, a graphic memoir that sustains its honesty and humor through both manic and depressive phases. No matter what she's experiencing, Forney wants you to be there with her — and chances are you'll want to be there, too.

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November 6, 2012 Barbara Kingsolver's seventh novel addresses global warming and the failings of public education through the story of a Tennessee woman whose thus-far disappointing life changes when 15 million monarch butterflies alight in the woods near her home.

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November 5, 2012 Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Richard Russo began looking out for his mother early in life. In his new memoir, Elsewhere, Russo writes not only of his mother, but of the vanished world that shaped her. Critic Maureen Corrigan calls the book "gorgeously nuanced."

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October 31, 2012 Swedish writer Karin Tidbeck's debut story collection, Jagannath, is suffused with the myths of her homeland — and the American oddities she picked up as a student here. Reviewer Alan Cheuse says the stories are weird — but it's a good kind of weird.

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