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Shalom Auslander's Hope: A Tragedy takes on genocide, identity politics and Anne Frank (now elderly and squatting in a farmhouse in upstate New York) with grim humor and daring irreverence.

John Brown, the man who led the 1859 raid on Harpers Ferry, Va., may be among the most polarizing figures in American history. To some, he's a traitor and terrorist; to others, he's a hero. Tony Horwitz discusses his book Midnight Rising: John Brown and the Raid That Sparked the Civil War.

When Roya Hakakian moved from Iran to the U.S., she didn't think any poet in her adopted country could top the ones whose work she grew up with. But then she discovered a piece that blew away her prejudices. It was "My Papa's Waltz" by Theodore Roethke.

Lefties get a bad rap — they're sometimes called untrustworthy or insincere, and some dubious studies even claim they die young. Author Rik Smits sets out to debunk those claims in a new book, The Puzzle of Left-handedness.

In this chilling dystopian novel by Ben Marcus, the speech of children begins poisoning adults, and a married couple must consider abandoning their teenage daughter to save themselves.

Author Kate Bussmann doesn't turn on the TV when news breaks — she heads for Twitter. Her new book chronicles a year of cultural and political news through the widely used microblogging site.

Frank Calabrese Jr. has written a memoir about bringing down his father's murderous Chicago crime family. In Operation Family Secrets, Frank details how he helped the FBI convict his father of several murders by wearing a hidden wire and taping his father's conversations.

Author John Sandford has written almost two dozen novels and thrillers, most of them as part of the "Prey" series. In his latest book, detective Virgil Flowers sets off into the rural countryside, where, as Sandford says, "every once in a while, things turn ugly, and when they turn ugly, they turn very ugly."

The actress and author's first novel, When It Happens to You, is built of interlocking short stories about a group of characters who orbit each other and the plot, sometimes touching, often not — but always exerting a tug on each other. Ringwald says that even at the height of her teen stardom, she was writing.

Martin Amis' latest novel, Lionel Asbo, takes a bilious — but funny — look at the deterioration of England through the eyes of the titular lowlife Lionel, a habitual offender who doesn't mind repeated prison stints, and his crime-reporter nephew Desmond.