Told simultaneously from the perspective of humans and chimpanzees, set in a Vermont home and a Florida primate research facility, A BEAUTIFUL TRUTH --- at times brutal, other times deeply moving --- is about the simple truths that transcend species, the meaning of family, the lure of belonging, and the capacity for survival.

From acclaimed military historian Max Hastings comes a new history of the outbreak of World War I: the dramatic stretch from the breakdown of diplomacy to the battles that marked the frenzied first year before the war bogged down in the trenches.

Kathryn Callaghan has just finished her novel about painter Élisabeth Vigée-LeBrun, a survivor of the French Revolution hated for her sympathetic portraits of Marie Antoinette. Though still haunted by the story she has written, Kathryn must leave the 18th-century European world she has researched and made vivid in order to return to her own life as an American in 2012.

It’s 1936 when orphaned 13-year-old Evalina Toussaint is admitted to Highland Hospital, a mental institution in Asheville, North Carolina, known for its innovative treatments for nervous disorders and addictions. Taken under the wing of the hospital’s most notable patient, Zelda Fitzgerald, Evalina witnesses cascading events that lead up to the tragic fire of 1948 that killed nine women in a locked ward, Zelda among them.

Silver Matlock and Jared Newman know traveling together is a bad idea. But Silver is determined to track down the rogue who left her at the altar and stole the last remnant of her father's fortune. And Jared is in a hurry to hunt down the murderer who destroyed his family --- even if Silver is too distractingly beautiful for comfort. To confront a deadly enemy, Silver and Jared must learn to forgive and trust and face the question they haven't dared voice: What happens next?

Manhattan journalist McKenna Jordan is chasing the story of an unidentified woman who heroically pulled a teenage boy from the subway tracks. When she locates footage of part of the incident, she is shocked to discover that the woman in the video bears a strong resemblance to a close friend who disappeared a decade earlier. This sends McKenna on a dangerous search for the missing woman --- a search that will force her to unearth long-buried truths much closer to home.

“Happy again, back in the kingdom of light,” writes Paul Theroux as he sets out on a new journey through the continent he knows and loves best. Theroux first came to Africa as a 22-year-old Peace Corps volunteer, and the pull of the vast land never left him. Now he returns, after 50 years on the road, to explore the little-traveled territory of western Africa and to take stock both of the place and of himself.

When was the last time you wrote a letter? Not an email or a Facebook message, but an actual handwritten letter sent through the mail? If it's been a while, then LETTERS FROM SKYE might just convince you to put pen to paper again. Jessica Brockmole's debut novel, an epistolary romance that spans several decades and two world wars, is a testament to the power of love to overcome great adversity.

John Dunn never expected that his summer job as a caddy at the local course in Connecticut might turn into something more. But one adventure after another kept him coming back summer after summer, until --- out of college --- he found himself migrating with the seasons, looping at some of the most exquisite and exclusive golf locations in the world.

Throughout the course of his ordeal battling esophageal cancer, Christopher Hitchens refused the solace of religion, preferring to confront death with both eyes open. In this riveting account of his affliction, Hitchens poignantly describes the torments of illness, discusses its taboos, and explores how disease transforms experience and changes our relationship to the world around us.

Angelo DiNoto is a powerful crime lord in 1967, his empire bolstered by importing pure heroin courtesy of the poppies grown by an old Turkish farmer. Yet when a five-million-dollar shipment goes missing, DiNoto isn’t the only one willing to turn over every rock (and bust some heads, arms, legs, etc.) to locate it.

THE SAVIOR GENERALS is a set of pocket biographies of five generals (Themistocles, Belisarius, William Tecumseh Sherman, Matthew Ridgway and David Petraeus) who single-handedly saved their nations from defeat in war. Their dramatic feats of leadership are vital slices of history --- not merely as stirring military narrative, but as lessons on the dynamic nature of consensus, leadership and destiny.

Haley’s three-year marriage to Sam, an army medic, ends tragically when he’s killed in Afghanistan. Her attempts to create a new life for herself are ambushed when she arrives home one evening --- and finds her husband's estranged twin brother, Stephen, waiting for her. Stephen discovers Sam never told Haley about him. As Haley and Stephen navigate their fragile relation­ship, they are drawn to each other. How can they honor the memory of a man whose death brought them together --- and whose ghost could drive them apart?

The Stranger appears out of nowhere. His identity is unknown, and his motives are unclear. But his information is undeniable. He whispers a few words in your ear and disappears, leaving you picking up the pieces of your shattered world. Adam Price has a lot to lose: a comfortable marriage to a beautiful woman, two wonderful sons, and all the trappings of the American Dream. Then he runs into the Stranger. When he learns a devastating secret about his wife, he confronts her, and the mirage of perfection disappears as if it never existed at all.

When America wakes up with personable and charming hosts like Matt Lauer, Robin Roberts and George Stephanopoulos, it's hard to imagine their show bookers having to guard a guest's hotel room all night to prevent rival shows from poaching. But that is just part of the intense reality Brian Stelter reveals in TOP OF THE MORNING --- a gripping look at the most competitive time slot in television, complete with Machiavellian booking wars and manic behavior by the producers, executives and stars.

As the novel opens on Thanksgiving Day, readers are telescoped into three different worlds in various states of disrepair --- a young freegan couple living off the grid in New York City; a once-prominent linguist, sacked at midlife by the dissolution of his marriage and his father’s losing battle with Alzheimer’s; and a self-made debt-collecting magnate, whose brute talent for squeezing money out of unlikely places has yielded him a royal existence, trophy wife included.