Words can seem infinite — but language has limits. In his new poetry collection, Pilgrim Bell, Kaveh Akbar shapes language into prayer, into body, into patchwork — but only into what can be known.

Though Susan Williams' book is framed far too expansively, it overflows with fascinating information, research and bold ideas — especially regarding Congo's first prime minister, Patrice Lumumba.

Perhaps most interesting in Tim Higgins' book are the hints at what might have been: Tesla could have built a plug-in hybrid, or sold itself to Google, or become a battery supplier.

You don't have to be Catholic to connect with Claire Luchette's vivid story of a lonely young woman yearning for community — and also for everything she gave up to be part of that community.

No fewer than five assassins are on the high speed train at the center of Kotaro Isaka outlandish and virtuoso novel — and within pages, they're going after each other.

YZ Chin's Edge Case follows a Malaysian immigrant working at a lousy, sexist startup, worried about her marriage and the thought of having to move back home — all topics it handles beautifully.

Novelist Hwang Sok-yong spent years in prison — a disruption that's reflected in the structure of his new memoir. It's a cinematic, riveting story that captures the struggles of his life and career.

In All's Well, a theater professor in chronic pain, ignored by doctors, believes putting on one of Shakespeare's least popular plays will renew her — and then three mystery men offer her a cure.

Britta Lundin's Like Other Girls follows Mara, a hot-tempered 6'2" high school sports star who's booted from basketball for brawling, but finds a new life and a new way of being on the football field.

Late summer is the time to lose yourself in novels, so we asked author (and Key West resident) Meg Cabot to share a few of her favorite books to while away the hours on the water.

In Savage Tongues, Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi gives us a protagonist who speaks often of history and how it's affected her — but what, exactly, is "history" to her? Readers will be left wondering.

James Rebanks' new book Pastoral Song urgently conveys how the drive for cheap, mass-produced food has impoverished both small farmers and the soil, threatening humanity's future.

Maryse Condé's new novel follws a lonely man, an obstetrician who adopts an orphaned baby girl and tries to find her family — it's an examination of loss and grief on a personal and national level.

Nathan Harris's debut, set in a small Southern town just after Appomattox, has captured American readersthis summer by asking a question we haven't yet answered: How do you make peace after civil war?

Anthony Veasna So died in December, but he lives on in the pages of this debut story collection — a vibrant, funny and unsparing look at the lives of Cambodian Americans in his California hometown.