Michael Schaub

The singer-songwriter's new book is an unconventional rock memoir that doesn't hew to the genre's norms. And like her entire musical catalog, it's honest and original.

Stephen Harrigan's sprawling history of the Lone Star state showcases his enthusiasm for Texas; it's an endlessly fascinating look at how the state has evolved over the years.

Maaza Mengiste's new novel is set just before the second Italo-Ethiopian War, and follows a woman who becomes a guard to a "shadow king," a man impersonating exiled Ethiopian ruler Haile Selassie.

In Kevin Barry's grim but compassionate new novel, two weary Irish ex-crooks sit waiting in a run-down Spanish ferry terminal, waiting for one man's estranged daughter who may or may not show up.

Etgar Keret at his best can be brilliant, and some of the stories in his new collection are nearly perfect, but over all it's an uneven read, weighed down by pointless whimsy and unearned pessimism.

Edwidge Danticat's new story collection explores the ways people deal with death, from a woman whose barely known father is dying to a man facing his last seconds as he falls from a construction site.

Rion Amilcar Scott's second story collection returns readers to his fictional town of Cross River, Md., site of America's only successful slave uprising, and God is one of the best-known residents.

Tupelo Hassman's novel about a group of teenagers at loose ends in a tiny town run by Christian fundamentalists has some dark moments, but ultimately it's as heartwarming as it is beautifully written.

In her debut collection, Kimberly King Parsons writes with the unpredictable power of a firecracker, bringing flashes of illumination to sharp, compassionate stories about longing and disappointment.

Rajia Hassib's novel wrestles with heavy themes — survivor's guilt, religion, family and revolution — but it's never didactic. It's an honest, engrossing portrait of two very different sisters.

Jordi Puntí's new short story collection is full of men living on the edge — almost always because they've put themselves there. They're maddening characters, and Puntí regards them with sympathy.

Sarah Elaine Smith's debut novel, about a girl from an impoverished, broken family who impersonates a missing neighbor in order to get motherly attention, is otherworldly in its beauty and power.

Colson Whitehead's harrowing new novel is based on a true story about a brutally abusive reform school in Florida where the grounds were pocked with the unmarked graves of the boys who died there.

Chanelle Benz's debut novel follows a woman digging into the death of her father, a celebrated African American writer who abandoned his family — and died in a mysterious accident not long after.

This debut story collection from Raphael Bob-Waksberg, creator of the TV show BoJack Horseman, has some excellent, risk-taking work in it — but stumbles sometimes over its higher concepts.

Peter Houlahan's account of the violent robbery and its aftermath is based on interviews with civilians, officers and robbers involved; his prose reads like a crime novel in the best way possible.

Nicole Dennis-Benn packs a lot of uncomfortable truths into this novel about a Jamaican woman who emigrates to New York looking for an old love and a new life, leaving her mother and daughter behind.

Ryan Chapman's debut novel opens in the middle of a prison riot as the unnamed narrator cowers in fear for his life — which doesn't seem like a setup for comedy, but it's packed with dark laughs.

Gifted writers Dan Abrams and David Fisher, who previously brought us Lincoln's Last Trial, are clearly fascinated by how Teddy Roosevelt's court case played out — bringing an enthusiasm to readers.

Russell's new story collection encompasses everything from a boy in love with a bog body to a woman trying to get out of a bargain with the devil — it's unlike anything you've ever read before.