In her memoir YOU COULD MAKE THIS PLACE BEAUTIFUL, poet Maggie Smith explores the disintegration of her marriage and her renewed commitment to herself in lyrical vignettes that shine, hard and clear as jewels. The book begins with one woman’s personal, particular heartbreak, but its circles widen into a reckoning with contemporary womanhood, traditional gender roles, and the power dynamics that persist even in many progressive homes. With the spirit of self-inquiry and empathy she’s known for, Smith interweaves snapshots of a life with meditations on secrets, anger, forgiveness and narrative itself. The power of these pieces is cumulative: page after page, they build into a larger interrogation of family, work and patriarchy.

It's the most anticipated event of the decade --- Big Lou and Fat Bob's wedding --- and everyone is invited! But the relative peace and tranquillity of 44 Scotland Street is about to be disrupted. Domineering Irene is set to return for a two-month stay, consigning young Bertie to a summer camp. Not content with that, she somehow manages to come between the enigmatic nun, Sister Maria-Fiore dei Fiori di Montagna, and her friend, the hagiographer Antonia Collie. And can a person really change, even after being struck by lightning? Bruce Anderson’s metamorphosis and new-found outlook on life is put to the test as he prepares to leave his creature comforts for the monastic simplicity of Pluscarden Abbey.

By the time Will Schwalbe was a junior at college, he already had met everyone he cared to know. He also knew exactly who he wanted to avoid: the jocks. The jocks wore baseball caps and moved in packs, filling boisterous tables in the dining hall, and on the whole seemed to be another species entirely. All this changed dramatically when Will collided with Chris Maxey, known to just about everyone as Maxey. Maxey was physically imposing, loud and a star wrestler who was determined to become a Navy SEAL. Thanks to the strangely liberating circumstances of a little-known secret society at Yale, the two forged a bond that would become a mainstay of each other’s lives as they repeatedly lost and found each other and themselves in the years after graduation.

Born in Rome, Maria Lagana immigrates with her mother to Los Angeles after a childhood transgression leads to her father’s arrest. Fifteen years later, on the eve of America’s entry into World War II, Maria is an associate producer at Mercury Pictures, trying to keep her personal and professional lives from falling apart. Over the coming months, as the bright lights go dark across LA, Mercury Pictures becomes a nexus of European émigrés. While the world descends into war, Maria rises through a maze of conflicting politics, divided loyalties and jockeying ambitions. But when the arrival of a stranger from her father’s past threatens Maria’s carefully constructed facade, she must finally confront her father’s fate --- and her own.

Two years out of college, Ellie Adler has a job in journalism, an older lover and a circle of smart friends. Her beloved father, James, who has children from three marriages, unites the family with his gentle humor and charisma, but Ellie has always believed she is her father's favorite. When he suddenly dies, she finds herself devastated by the unexpected loss. Then, at the reading of his will, she learns that instead of leaving her his prized possession --- a baseball that holds emotional resonance for them both --- he has left her a seemingly ridiculous, even insulting gift. Worse, he’s given the baseball to someone no one in the family has ever heard of. Setting out to track this person down, Ellie learns startling information about who her father really was and who she herself is becoming.

Snowed in at a remote artists’ residency in Vermont, Peter recalls another Christmas some 30 years earlier, when he met Marcia by chance. Only now does he begin to see the consequences of their brief affair through a series of connections. When Hubert asks Sabrina to model for a sculpture, she’s flattered. But facing the finished product disturbs her, and she becomes determined to follow her double after it’s sold to a collector. Uneasy in his own skin, David decides to rob a bank. He’s heard that bank robbers often study the scene for weeks before they strike. So he’s started to lurk. In these powerfully affecting stories, Peter Stamm illustrates how fragile our reality really is, how susceptible to tricks of the heart and mind.

“When you look over your own library, who do you see?” asks Well-Read Black Girl founder Glory Edim in this lovingly curated anthology. Bringing together an array of “unforgettable, and resonant coming-of-age stories” (Nicole Dennis-Benn), Edim continues her life’s work to brighten and enrich American reading lives through the work of both canonical and contemporary Black authors --- from Jamaica Kincaid and Toni Morrison to Dana Johnson and Alexia Arthurs. Divided into four themes --- Innocence, Belonging, Love and Self-Discovery --- ON GIRLHOOD features fierce young protagonists who contend with trials that shape who they are and what they will become. At times heartbreaking and hilarious, the stories within push past flat stereotypes and powerfully convey the beauty of Black girlhood.

The Anthropocene is the current geologic age, in which humans have profoundly reshaped the planet and its biodiversity. In this remarkable symphony of essays, bestselling author John Green reviews different facets of the human-centered planet on a five-star scale --- from the QWERTY keyboard and sunsets to Canada geese and Penguins of Madagascar. Funny, complex and rich with detail, the reviews chart the contradictions of contemporary humanity. Green’s gift for storytelling shines throughout this masterful collection. THE ANTHROPOCENE REVIEWED is an open-hearted exploration of the paths we forge and an unironic celebration of falling in love with the world.

Kabul, 1978: The daughter of a prominent family, Sitara Zamani lives a privileged life in Afghanistan’s thriving cosmopolitan capital. But her world is shattered when communists stage a coup, assassinating the president and Sitara’s entire family. Smuggled out of the palace by a guard named Shair, Sitara finds her way to the home of a female American diplomat, who adopts her and raises her in America. In her new country, Sitara takes on a new name --- Aryana Shepherd --- and throws herself into her studies, eventually becoming a renowned surgeon. New York, 2008: Forty years after that fatal night in Kabul, Aryana’s world is rocked again when an elderly patient appears in her examination room. It is Shair, the soldier who saved her, yet may have murdered her entire family.

Easy Rawlins, the Black private detective whose small agency finally has its own office, gets a visit from a white Vietnam veteran. He and his lover were attacked in a citrus grove at the city’s outskirts. He may have killed a man, and the woman and his dog are now missing. Inclined to turn down what sounds like nothing but trouble, Easy takes the case when he realizes how damaged the young vet is from his war experiences. Meanwhile, Easy’s adopted daughter Feather’s white uncle shows up uninvited, raising questions and unsettling the life Easy has long forged for the now young woman. Where Feather sees a family reunion, Easy suspects something else, something that will break his heart.