How far did we come to the precipice? What if we hadn't made it through and fell back into a dark world such as the one presented in "Widowland"? Rose Ransom is an interesting view into a society where great novels are edited so as to prevent individual thought, but there are times when the seriousness of this world is constantly pounded upon the reader, and it sometimes loses its potency by that repetitiveness.

"At the Chinese Table" is really something wonderful, and it's not only because of the food that Carolyn Phillips has experienced and now expressed to readers so poetically. It's the history behind it, her family history, which takes a bit of time to get into, much like a great Chinese feast.

Her stories from the 1970s and 1980s, in meeting fellow food lover J.H. Huang give greater appreciation for the cultures we can learn about and cross into, to embolden ourselves with new life that may not have been possible with our only one. Sometimes it takes two, and what better place than Taipei for Phillips? She got this experience and we get to revel in all of it. It's the kind of memoir that makes you wish it was a pop-up book of sorts, with the dishes themselves appearing right in front of you. Oh if only.

"Crossing the River" is a sober, hopeful reminder that we're not all as separate as we sometimes think. What we've been through, somebody else has been through.

Eminent reporter and scholar of the heart Carol Smith unearths that realization not only to further address her own grief over the death of her seven-year-old son, Christopher, but to reach out to the rest of us for that reason. Her story happened many years ago, but she's presented it at just the right time. It may be that she feels strong enough now to expose her life like this, but more so for her stories, and her experience in reporting on stories that changed her outlook on her own life, to connect to so many more who might well need it.

The thread that's prevalent throughout "Crossing the River" is this: There is no shame in being human. These emotions, these experiences, all make up what we are. There's no avoiding that. And Smith lights the way that makes it at least easier to bear.

History in the present day is about finally illuminating what has always been pushed into dark corners and completely ignored. Anna Malaika Tubbs is one of the great many leading the charge, with this in-depth chronicle of the lives of Alberta King, Louise Little, and Berdis Baldwin, the mothers of Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and James Baldwin.

Tubbs' greatest strength and heart in the book is keeping the women connected, with all their commonalities, their struggles, their power, their heartbreak, their drive giving to us insight into what they endured, and how their heroic sons were influenced by their powerful day-to-day example.

All three are phenomenal women that hopefully is just the start, thanks to Tubbs, in bringing much more of this to the fore. It's ever more crucial in these tumultuous times.

"The Smallest Lights in the Universe" is an object lesson to those struggling not to drown in overwhelming grief: You are not alone. You have never been alone.

Support groups could very well feature this in a book club, and there are vast, fascinating questions of the universe in hard science besides.

This stunning, heartfelt, soul-soaring memoir is a testament to what dedication in family research can do, as Esther Safran Foer seeks to fill in the Holocaust-laden memories that her mother would not reveal. Too painful, too much.

What follows Foer's initial determination is a fascinating insight into what it means to expand the reach of a family, by way of seeking to sort out those pieces of history and find out their truth. Foer and her son travel to find out, and along the way, there are so many moments, such as with the mass graves that show completely that not only did this happen, but this is one way never to forget, to make sure that this somber history does not disappear, and that it's hope that future generations will learn. Indeed, we are still here. Foer's family is still here. And thanks to what she's written here, it will never be forgotten, and rightly so.

This is one of those books that you approach if you know a little something about the Seine as it is in Paris, but never thought about it much beyond that, curious about what you might not know. It becomes a treasure hunt with a wonderful tour guide, with Elaine Scolino professing her love of the Seine and then seeking out its history, how it forms Paris, where it originates from, and various interesting tidbits in between. The delights keep coming as she digs deeper, and it's a useful journey to take.

I always like it when authors and novelists take our national monuments, such as the Roosevelts and Abraham Lincoln, and make them accessible, so to speak, to us mere mortals. Generally, they acknowledge the enormity of the events that these figures are known for, but delves more into their interior emotional landscapes, at those times and at others that might not be as well known to us but are no less interesting and instructive.

In "American Princess," Stephanie Marie Thornton presents THE Alice Roosevelt, who was also known as Princess Alice to the American public then, as well as other laudatory names. She spends her years, both in the White House and out of it, going between seeking her father's approval in any way she can, and forging a blazing trail for her own life. What's remarkable here, as with other novelists who have been able to do it, is how Thornton so thoroughly adopts Alice's inimitable voice, that we can't help but be swept up in the tide of history that is most singularly Alice's, including her marriage to Nicholas Longworth, Congressman and eventually Speaker of the House. It's remarkable work from a remarkable time in our country, and despite some of it seeming to go on quite long, this is a fascinating glance at part of our nation's history and the monuments involved.

One of the reasons we read is for those moments in which we sit back with a book and think, "Where did this come from?! Where has this author been in life and in the imagination?"

Dara Horn's latest novel, "Eternal Life" is exactly like that. At one time or another, we all have surely thought about what we might do if we were immortal, how much more time we would have for the things we might not have time for in our finite lives.

But for Rachel, it's ancient Jerusalem devastated by the Romans. It's giving birth to and seeing all of her children eventually die. How could we mere mortals even stand that?

It's Rachel's journey through this, what she has seen, and what she sees in the present day through that past, that makes this a thoughtful, constantly probing novel that will make you really think about life as we are living it, and just be amazed at Rachel's tenacity in the process. Amazing work.

"The Garden of Small Beginnings" is an unexpected, welcome delight with chuckles, guffaws, and outright loud laughter on every page. There's something for everyone to relate to here, from widows to beginning gardeners, to even dogs wanting fallen chicken nuggets and having the law on their side.

If you can, save this one for the heat of summer. Stay indoors and your laughter will add still cooler relief to your air conditioning.

The only other times I've encountered the second person is in the heartbreaking short story collection "The Music of Your Life" by John Rowell (the title story contained it) and "Sous Chef: 24 Hours on the Line" by Michael Gibney, who sought to immerse readers in the intense working life of a sous chef in the kitchen of a mid-sized restaurant. Both were successful in their aims, but it's a delicate balancing act. With second person, the author believes that the only way you can truly feel the story is by becoming that person, not just walking alongside them as we do in third-person narratives.

In "The Half Wives," you are Henry Plageman, a former Lutheran minister, on a day in 1897, the anniversary of the birth of the son you lost. You also have two wives, and you're in San Francisco, where the city cemetery eventually awaits.

It all works, and just like the San Francisco that author Staclia Pelletier brings to vivid life, obviously living it so largely in what must have been copious research, Henry and these fascinating women are equally worth your time.

An expertly-crafted, deeply affecting, empathetic, evenhanded, science-driven and family-driven masterwork that should be on the shortlist for the Pulitzer Prize. It will almost certainly make one clamor for even more books by Gina Kolata, and more books just like it, elevating the importance of science to all aspects of our lives, and how it can also save our lives, or at least give us hope where there once was none.

A deeply affecting look into the life of one young man with a boundless spirit within the confines of so many boundaries. A surprise for summer reading, for sure, and most welcome.

"Tuesday Nights in 1980" is a luminous wonderland of a first novel, a headlong tumble into the beginning of the New York City art world in the 1980s that makes me remember my art teacher in college, and while she was as good as this novel is great, she wasn't as delightfully descriptive as Molly Prentiss is here, using two great human vehicles, an art critic with synesthesia and a painter who escaped from the murderous atmosphere of Argentina. You'll linger a lot, rereading so many passages that you'll almost lose track of the story told of these two men, but not mind so much because it means you have more time with them.

Hopefully Molly Prentiss has another novel in mind to follow this one, and will take the same care and exude the same energy that she has here. She's worth it.

Read "Every Anxious Wave" in disbelief. Read it in amazement. Read it in stunned silence, but please just read it and know that science fiction can be not only still accessible, but also one invigorating head trip that kicks out the usual boundaries of science fiction and hurls us through time just as fiercely as bar owner Karl Bender and his equally fierce and fiercely intelligent astrophysicist girlfriend Lena are hurled as well in their attempt to rescue Karl's eccentric friend Wayne from 980 Mannahatta (instead of ending up in 1980 Manhattan, where Wayne wanted to go to save John Lennon). It's time travel for us, the average you and me, that we wish could be possible.

As a resident of Henderson, Nevada, close enough to Las Vegas that I always end up there somewhere, either in errands or occasionally on the Strip, I can say that James Sie's "Still Life Las Vegas" is partly accurate with its puzzling structure. This story of Walter Stahl inadvertently finding himself while searching for his missing mother could very well happen here, and certainly the statues at the Venetian in Chrysto and Acacia do occasionally appear there, but it would have worked better if it had kept to the "realistic" Las Vegas instead of overdramatically destroying part of the Venetian and it being rebuilt as Venice Venice. There's enough stories to be found in Las Vegas every minute, weird enough on their own, that Walter could have fit in very well without such embellishments.

Overall, Sie has a potentially good thing going, once you find the pieces of it outside the flashbacks and Greek myth noise.

Despite the seemingly endless descriptions of flowers that bog down the story in many instances, this is a decent first effort that shows some promise to come in the future. Christine Breen is working her way through character creation and maintaining interest, and Iris at least has quite a journey to show for it, her cancer possibility notwithstanding.

Irritable Hearts is a searing, emotionally land-mined journey into not only what it means to have PTSD, but to live with it, to try to get through it in such a way that it doesn't completely implode one's life. But to get to that point, wow. Mac McClelland has been through total hell, and has come through it to hopefully help others who have been going through it too. They are not alone, and hopefully it takes the stigma off PTSD, showing that it's real and it hurts people. Let this book be a healing point.

"Backyard" could very well be heaven for devoted gardeners, with delightful, knowledgeable descriptions of all kinds of flowers and weeds, as well as the designs of various backyard gardens, and those who eat, sleep, drink, and breathe those gardens.

However, the delight only goes so far, such as a description of the garden of George and Nan Fremont, admired by many fellow gardeners and reviled by the imperious, holier-gardening-than-thou Dr. Sproot. A wonderful name, but a one-note character. And even though he purports to show us how elaborate the Fremonts' garden is, the pages and pages given over to it becomes exhausting.

The whole novel centers around a gardening contest sponsored by Burdick's Plant World, but it's hard to get into it, wearying to watch as these characters go to great lengths to try to win in the town of Livia in the upper Midwest. It feels like we're running around and around the same track, hoping for something different to pop up in the telling, soon realizing it's a futile hope. As a story, it lacks a great deal of forward motion, something worth following, even while the contest goes on. For gardeners, and this reader who loves to read about flowers rather than plant them, it's a lot of fun seeing such deep knowledge bursting through these pages, that you half-expect to smell each flower as Norman Draper describes it. Hopefully the story will shine through in the sequel alongside the flowers.

Lois Leveen is a grand, sweeping storyteller, whose passion for the 1300s, particularly the late 1300s in Juliet's Nurse, makes her seem like a time traveler who stayed in Verona for the three years in Part One, and then traveled to the fateful year that makes up Part Two, all from the perspective of a grieving devoted nurse to one Juliet Cappelletti, the very same that some English scribbler named Shakespeare had a crack at.

Leveen has made the late 1300s deeply engrossing, not only through these characters we already know a fair bit about, but also the details of plague-ridden lives in Verona, and the seemingly untouchable wealthy families with ancient, bloody grudges aplenty. One thing's for sure, besides the absolute necessity for time to be set aside for this novel: Pregnancy in the 1300s, as portrayed here, will engender new fascination with nature's process, certainly in wide-eyed, surprised discussions, and most likely a lot of laughter to spare at how much we've progressed.