Virgil Wander is a story filled with tall tales and quiet ambition and reminded me of the Tim Burton movie, The Big Fish. If you’re a fan of magical realism, second chances, and the power of stories, check out Virgil Wander at your favorite bookstore or library.

Krueger takes a poke at corporate money and politics, as well as mining and the environment. There is action, adventure, and suspense, but woven throughout is a deeper, quieter message: one about family and nature and how closely we are connected to each other and the earth.

Using the evocative backdrop of the Boundary Waters wilderness, Mejia explores the myriad of ways we can become lost – physically, emotionally, and psychologically. She expertly weaves together the back stories of Maya and Lucas to an electrifying and ultimately satisfying conclusion. Mejia’s characters are real – flawed and messy, with complicated families and punk-dyed hair. They make choices that leave you clawing at the air, wishing you could pull them back from the cliff . . . and in the Boundary Waters, there are plenty of cliffs.

Pachinko is a story for our times – the story of a family that rises above the limitations placed upon them by people and governments, to make not only a home, but a life.

Painter is a dreamer and a realist. Anyone who has ever had a dream deferred, anyone who appreciates art or wants to learn more about art, will enjoy Painter’s memoir, Old in Art School.

In Tara Westover's Educated, A Memoir, she recounts her fundamentalist Mormon upbringing in the shadow of Buck's Peak in Idaho. She grew up hearing stories of families being gunned down by federal agents, and her father's proselytizing about the impending end of the world.

As always, Stonich’s descriptions of the landscape are richly drawn and imbued with the scents, sounds, and sights of the northern Minnesota landscape. She is at the height of her powers in describing a rent in the Divide where Alpo escapes to fish one last time before his wedding: “The cavern opens to a dank bowl of low wetland anchored with hooked cedars. One end of the pool spills down into it, a sheet of water the width of a car. It foams upon impact but settles smooth a few yards into its course. Where the stream meets a boulder, it splits neatly in two to flow in opposite directions.”

In Warlight, Ondaatje examines a theme that occurs throughout much of his body of work – “The lost sequence in a life,” he writes, “Is the thing we always search out.” He reminds us that often it is only through the refracted lens of adulthood, that we can truly understand the past.

O’Farrell’s point is clear. Any of us could be one breath away from dying, and it is in recognizing this, that Maggie O’Farrell has learned to appreciate living – breath by breath, moment by moment, day by day. And after her daughter survives yet another brush with death, she whispers, She is, she is, she is.

Bythell clearly has a dry sense of humor, and in his business, he needs it. If you’re a bookseller or a former bookseller, or have ever wondered what it would be like to be a bookseller – or even if you are just a book lover, you’ll enjoy The Diary of a Bookseller.

Rushmore McKenzie is back in David Housewright’s LIKE TO DIE, the fifteenth in the series. Fans will find no surprises here -- true to form, there’s humor, conflict, action, sexual tension and finally resolution.

Lorna has a gift for creating memorable characters in gorgeous landscapes. We've waited a long time for this sequel to Patty Jane's House of Curl. Once in a Blue Moon Lodge was a guilty pleasure -- like tasting a favorite childhood dish after a long time away. Ione, Patty Jane, and Nora weave together a rag tag family forged by time and love lost and found.

Paula McLain is one of my favorite authors of historical fiction because she carefully researches her subjects and characters. Circling the Sun -- about the life of horse trainer and aviator Beryl Markham was one of my favorites, but now with Love and Ruin, she has fleshed out the life of another strong female, Martha Gellhorn. I can't wait to read her next book!