In time for the 50th anniversary of CATCH-22, Tracy Daugherty illuminates his most vital subject yet in this brilliant biography of Joseph Heller.

This wondrous, deeply affecting first novel recounts the unlikely journey undertaken by a father, an infant son, and their guardian angel in the aftermath of the First World War.

Temporarily submerged by our economic woes, the debate over immigration policy simmers just below the surface of American political and social life. In MY NEW AMERICAN LIFE, Francine Prose tells the story of Lula, a savvy young Albanian immigrant trying to gain a foothold in a country that at times seems as strange as her native land.

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.