Anyone looking for a guide to the psyche of the middle-aged man would do much worse than to settle down with Roddy Doyle’s outstanding new collection of 13 stories. Set, with one exception, in present-day Dublin and its environs, they offer the literary equivalent of an MRI of the souls of a troubled, yet sympathetic, group of men. Reviewed by Harvey Freedenberg.

In a novel that possesses the immediacy and power of a memoir, Francisco Goldman recounts the story of his passionate, if improbable, love affair with a woman two decades his junior and of the nearly insurmountable grief that stalked him after its tragic conclusion.

On the eve of her ninth birthday, unassuming Rose Edelstein bites into her mother's homemade lemon-chocolate cake and discovers she has a magical gift: she can taste her mother's emotions in the slice.

Maxwell Sim can’t seem to make a single meaningful connection. In an attempt to get out of his rut, Max accepts a strange offer to drive a Prius full of toothbrushes from London to the remote Shetland Islands. But he’s unable to resist making a series of impromptu visits to important figures from his past.

At 8:17 on a Friday night, the Illumination begins. Every wound begins to shine, every bruise to glow and shimmer. And in the aftermath of a fatal car accident, a journal of love notes, written by a husband to his wife, passes into the keeping of Carol Ann Page. 

On April 15, 1990, Jill Bialosky’s 21-year-old sister Kim climbed into a car in the garage, turned on the ignition, and fell asleep. Now, Jill recreates her sister’s inner life, and the events and emotions that led her to take her life on this particular night.