WALLS OF WIND unfolds on an alien world whose two sentient species, Ghen and Bria, are interdependent and reproductively symbiotic, yet have been conditioned through many generations to believe they otherwise have very little in common. Against daunting challenges, they come together when threatened by a predator to whom both are dangerously --- and genetically --- linked.

Sensual, painterly, even prayerful, these 50 poems and 50 full-color original pictures by Sheryl Loeffler deepen into a land of legend and myth, an island populated, past and present, by saints, beggars and pirates, all of whom are blessed by "vivid geometries" of light. Sheryl Loeffler portrays Malta as a country awash in splendor and contradiction, "this land where Christians call God Alla."

The Late Starters Orchestra is the bona fide amateur string orchestra where Ari Goldman pursues his lifelong dream of playing the cello. Goldman hadn’t seriously picked up his cello in 25 years, but the Late Starters seemed just the right orchestra for this music lover whose busy life had always gotten in the way of its pursuit. In his memoir, Goldman takes us along to LSO rehearsals and lets us sit in on his son’s Suzuki lessons, where we find out that children do indeed learn differently from adults.

Fifteen years ago, Krista Bremer would not have been able to imagine her life today: married to a Libyan-born Muslim, raising two children with Arabic names in the American South. Nor could she have imagined the prejudice she would encounter or the profound ways her marriage would change her perception of the world. MY ACCIDENTAL JIHAD explores what it means to open our hearts to another culture and to embrace our own.

One day, Carol Wall, a white woman living in a lily-white neighborhood in Middle America, notices a dark-skinned African man tending her neighbor’s yard. Before long, Giles Owita is transforming not only Carol’s yard, but her life. Though they are seemingly quite different, a caring bond grows between them. But they both hold long-buried secrets that, when revealed, will cement their friendship forever.

In 1988, Su Meck suffered a traumatic brain injury that erased all her memories of her life up to that point. Although her body healed rapidly, her memories never returned. Yet after just three weeks in the hospital, Su was released and once again charged with the care of two toddlers and a busy household. Nearly 20 years would pass before a series of personally devastating events shattered the “normal” life she had worked so hard to build, and she realized that she would have to grow up all over again.

Beethoven scholar and classical radio host John Suchet has had a lifelong, ardent interest in the man and his music. Here, in his first full-length biography, Suchet illuminates the composer’s difficult childhood, his struggle to maintain friendships and romances, his ungovernable temper, his obsessive efforts to control his nephew’s life, and the excruciating decline of his hearing.

In MOZART: A LIFE, acclaimed historian and author Paul Johnson’s focus is on the music --- Mozart’s wondrous output of composition and his uncanny gift for instrumentation. In addition, Johnson challenges the many myths that have followed Mozart, including those about the composer’s health, wealth, religion and relationships.

In the tradition of M. F. K. Fisher, Laurie Colwin and Ruth Reichl, BLUE PLATE SPECIAL is a narrative in which food --- eating it, cooking it, reflecting on it --- becomes the vehicle for unpacking a life. Kate Christensen explores her history of hunger --- not just for food, but for love and confidence and a sense of belonging --- with a profound honesty, starting with her unorthodox childhood in 1960s Berkeley as the daughter of a mercurial legal activist who ruled the house with his fists.

Rebecca Solnit explores the ways we make our lives out of stories, and how we are connected by empathy, by narrative, by imagination. In the course of unpacking some of her own stories --- of her mother and her decline from memory loss, of a trip to Iceland, of an illness --- Solnit revisits fairy tales and entertains other stories. Woven together, these stories create a map that charts the boundaries and territories of storytelling, reframing who each of us is and how we might tell our story.