After 10 years’ absence, Roland Nair returns to Freetown, Sierra Leone, to reunite with his friend, Michael Adriko. Adriko is an African who styles himself a soldier of fortune, newly engaged to a college girl named Davidia from Colorado. Together the three set out to visit Adriko’s clan in the Uganda-Congo borderland --- but each of these travelers is keeping secrets from the others. Their journey through a land abandoned by the future leads Adriko, Nair and Davidia to meet themselves not in a new light, but rather in a new darkness.

Ranging from youth to old age, the voices that inhabit PROBLEMS WITH PEOPLE offer tender, unexpected and always tightly focused accounts of our quest to understand each other, individually, and as part of a political and historical moment. These stories are shot through with tragedy, poignant reflections upon cultural and personal circumstances, and paradigmatic questions about our sense of reality and belonging.

When an unidentified Jane Doe, the victim of a hit-and-run, arrives in Dr. Charlotte Reese’s intensive care unit, she brings with her mysteries --- both medical and personal. As Charlotte cares for Jane, she becomes increasingly caught up in the questions of her patient’s identity and what led to her accident. When Charlotte’s search for answers reveals links between Charlotte and her patient, the repercussions will forever change her life and her understanding of what love can make possible.

When the Taliban took control of the Swat Valley in Pakistan, one girl spoke out. Malala Yousafzai refused to be silenced and fought for her right to an education. On Tuesday, October 9, 2012, when she was 15, she was shot in the head at point-blank range while riding the bus home from school. Malala's miraculous recovery has taken her on an extraordinary journey from a remote valley in northern Pakistan to the halls of the United Nations in New York.

This latest book from Julian Barnes, author of the Man Booker Prize–winning novel THE SENSE OF AN ENDING, begins in the 19th century and leads seamlessly into an entirely personal account of loss. LEVELS OF LIFE is about ballooning, photography, love and loss; about putting two things --- and two people --- together and tearing them apart.

James Candler seems to be well on the road to success at age 33. But the reality is that he’s falling in love with another woman, he’s underwater on his mortgage, and he’s put his hapless best friend in charge of his signature therapeutic program. And his clients are struggling in their own hilarious, heartbreaking ways to keep their lives on track. How can he help them if he can’t help himself?

Rosemary Cooke was not yet six when her sister, Fern, was removed. Over the years, she has managed to block a lot of memories. With some guile, she guides us through the darkness, penetrating secrets and unearthing memories, leading us deeper into the mystery she has dangled before us from the start. Stripping off the protective masks that have hidden truths too painful to acknowledge, in the end, “Rosemary” truly is for remembrance.

Marjorie Celona’s debut novel is about a wise-beyond-her-years foster child abandoned as a newborn on the doorstep of the local YMCA. Swaddled in a dirty gray sweatshirt with nothing but a Swiss Army knife tucked between her feet, little Shannon is discovered by a man who catches only a glimpse of her troubled mother as she disappears from view. That morning, all three lives are forever changed.

BRAIN ON FIRE is the powerful account of Susannah Cahalan’s struggle to recapture her identity and to rediscover herself among the fragments left behind. Using all her considerable journalistic skills --- and building from hospital records and surveillance video, interviews with family and friends, and excerpts from the deeply moving journal her father kept during her illness --- she pieces together the story of a “lost month” of her life.

Having lost virtually everything, Benjamin Benjamin enrolls in a night class called The Fundamentals of Caregiving. He is assigned to 19-year-old Trevor, who is in the advanced stages of Duchenne muscular dystrophy. As the two embark on a wild road trip across the American West, a new camaraderie replaces the traditional boundary between patient and caregiver.