Joyce Carol Oates' new novel is a crafty Gothic thriller, casting turn-of-the-century Princeton, New Jersey as a coven of vampires, ghosts, and demons dead set on seducing and destroying the town elites.

Domenica Ruta mines dark humor to handle a hard-knock childhood-- and her mother's addiction -- in an incendiary memoir of struggle, redemption, and reckless youth.  A 2013 Discover Great New Writers selection.

Tournament of Books co-founder and novelist Rosecrans Baldwin had the chance to fulfill a lifelong dream of Parisian living when a French advertising job landed in his lap. But cold réalité soon intruded, as told in this hilarious and winning memoir.

The death of a brilliant surgeon and flawed father reunites the disparate family he abandoned years earlier in suburban Accra, in Taiye Selasi's debut novel of jolting candor and the power of unconditional love. A 2013 Discover Great New Writers selection. Read our interview with Selasi here.

With its forthcoming adaptation into a Netflix series upon us, now is a great time to read Brian McGreevey's chilling modern take on werewolf mythology.

Spanning Hollywood, Italy, and Pacific Northwest over five decades, Jess Walter's movie-biz comedy is a tale of reunited lovers, Richard Burton, crafty idealism, and the impeccably named Hotel Adequate View.  A BN Review Best Fiction of 2012 selection, and a Tournament of Books Finalist.

Reinhard Heydrich, Hitler's most feared disciple, met his end in broad daylight on a crowded Prague avenue.  But who were his dual assassins?  Laurent Binet's novel – a 2013 Tournament of Books Finalist -- follows their desperate mission. 

In 1856, gorillas were still, to Europeans, a creature as mythical as the unicorn.  Enter brave zoologist Paul Du Chaillu, the man who penetrated the West African jungle in search of the truth -- and emerged into a storm of controversy.  A Spring 2013 Discover Great New Writers Selection.

Lauren Groff renders a kaleidoscopic view of a hippie commune’s arduous slog to utopia, as seen through the knowing eyes of lifetime resident Ridley “Little Bit” Stone.  A 2013 Tournament of Books Finalist.

A poignant and riveting memoir of survival during the 2004 tsunami which leveled Sonali Deraniyagala’s native Sri Lanka, and an aftermath of mourning and renewal.  A Spring 2013 Discover Great New Writers selection. 

Punk rock crooner Ian Svenonius (Nation of Ulysses, The Make-Up) pens a wry “how-to” guide to stardom, via tongue-in-cheek séances with deceased musicians and sincere lessons in swagger.

Twin sisters Saba and Mahteb come of age in 1980s Iran, obsessing over American pop culture, until revolution tears them apart.  Saba dreams that Mahteb has been swept away to the States, but will the two girls be reunited? A vivid evocation of a young woman facing a radically changing world.  A Spring 2013 Discover Great New Writers selection.

Ben Goldacre prescribes a critical dose of hard data and revision to our health care industry in this searing profile of “How Drug Companies Mislead Doctors and Harm Patients”. 

Staged everywhere from a plane crash to a carnival ride, Susan Steinberg’s pointed short stories present remarkable women overcoming turmoil and grief.

You've probably heard that dolphins communicate in a rich language of their own and that elephants display emotional bonds.  But Virginia Morrell's engaging new book offers some real surprises from the field of animal intelligence: creative ants, suffering fish, and the astonishing capacity of some bird brains. 

Ron Rash's short stories effortlessly shuttle readers through time --  from a Depression-era chain gang to the life of a late-night radio DJ.  But they remain deeply rooted in the  Appalachian mountain world he's captured in novels like The Cove and Serena.

A carelessly discarded match ignites a raging fire that destroys a neighborhood and changes the victims' lives in this soulful and compassionate debut novel.  A Spring 2013 Discover Great New Writers selection.

For the first time in human history, the majority of mankind lives in urban environments. A city planner by trade, Jeff Speck has a wealth of ideas about how to make these stone canyons more pleasant, and to bring out a crowded town's natural pedestrian pleasures.

We take its effects for granted, but this electrifying account of Thomas Edison’s invention of the modern light bulb, will generate new appreciation for how the conquest of darkness has permanently altered the world. Ernest Freeberg offers a richly detailed study of this transformative moment in human ingenuity.

Stuart Nadler renders an elegiac portrait of post-WWII Cape Cod,  as which teenager Hilly Wise's budding romance with the niece of his home's caretaker is shattered by his racist father.  An ambitious saga of prejudice, class, and family secrets.

These rousing "Short Stories of the Long War" are uniquely resonant, as fiction penned by Iraq and Afghanistan-stationed soldiers and their spouses.  Foreword by Colum McCann (Let the Great World Spin), with contributions from David Abrams (Fobbit), Phil Klay (The New York Times), and Brian Turner (NPR). 

Knowledge is power, and Sir Francis Walsingham, England's first great spymaster, understood that perfectly. At a time when England, a Protestant country, was surrounded by Catholics plotting to invade, and rival powers within, he did what it took to save Elizabeth I -- and her embattled country. Historian John Cooper's account of his efforts, and his life (c. 1532 to 1590), proves as thrilling as any spy novel.

A phenomenal bestseller in the author's native Indonesia, and already turned into a highly praised film, this semi-autobiographical coming-of-age novel by Andrea Hirata charts the fortunes of a posse of poor young students eager for knowledge in a culture where such aspirations are not always honored among their socio-economic class.

A divorced professor, reunited with his high school sweetheart, and seventeen year old Thad Love, a swimming phenom prone to fistfights, star in Jim Harrison’s matched pair of novellas.

Fifteen-year-old Marnie Doyle and her kid sister Nelly are on their own: free from their neglectful parents, and living with a little secret buried in the backyard.  By turns whimsical and macabre, Lisa O’Donnell’s debut novel has been named a Discover Great New Writers selection for Spring 2013.

A marvelous, chilling account of Douglas Mawson’s death-defying 1913 expedition of Antarctica, illustrated by Frank Hurley's never-before-published photographs of the journey.

Physician and short story writer Louise Aronson puts her stethoscope to the heart of a San Francisco hospital.

Jennifer Haigh delivers interwoven tales of working class humanity in the coal mining country of Bakerton, Pennsylvania, sharply returning to the world of her revered 2005 novel Baker Towers.  Spanning decades, Haigh magnifies a community's will to endure economic grief and heartbreak in each artfully crafted tale.

A strip mall dwelling gorilla and baby elephant bond over shared loves of art and nature in Katherine Applegate's charming winner of the 2013 Newbery Medal for "most distinguished contribution to American literature for children."

No chef autobiography has been this flavorful since Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential. Eddie Huang casts the founding of his beloved New York restaurant Baohaus against a backdrop of fashion, drugs, and brawling -- a zesty stew leading to culinary brilliance. Delicious.