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The main character in Aleksandar Hemon's new book is a hapless screenwriter who's never faced real hardship. But after an affair with a Bosnian refugee, he can no longer avoid the realities of war.

As a prisoner of war in the "Hanoi Hilton," Air Force fighter pilot John Borling spent years composing and memorizing poetry that he tapped to fellow prisoners, like the future Sen. John McCain, using a special code.

Former U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky says he's tired of people thinking of poetry as bad-tasting medicine they have to swallow just because it's healthy. His anthology of 80 poems by master poets is designed to help us see poetry as an art "rather than a challenge to say smart things."

The Telling Room is a tale of friendship, betrayal, mythmaking, ancient history and, yes, really fabulous cheese. Author Michael Paterniti tells NPR's Linda Wertheimer that the more he learned about cheesemaker Ambrosio Molinos, the less he wanted the story to end.

When Meg Lukens Noonan first stumbled across the expensive coat, her untutored eye saw nothing particularly special. In her new book, The Coat Route, Noonan explores how and why craftsmen spend months creating such luxuries. She also makes an appeal for why the art of tailoring should be preserved.

Curtis Sittenfeld's Sisterland, about a pair of adult psychic twins in St. Louis, is more about sibling rivalry than the supernatural. Reviewer Sloane Crosley says Sittenfeld handles the psychic realm with a light and logical touch that keeps the book artfully within the bounds of believability.

Dorothy Wrinch was the first woman to ever receive a doctorate in science from Oxford University, and she was the first person to design a protein structure. But her name is largely unknown. I Died for Beauty, a biography of Wrinch by Marjorie Senechal, tells her story.

Bill Macumber, a respected member of his Arizona community, was convicted of a grisly 1962 double murder. Late last year, however, he was released from prison. A new book tells the story of a flawed investigation and legal process that cost Macumber 38 years of freedom.

David Esterly's life was changed in the 1970s when he came across wood carvings done by Grinling Gibbons more than 300 years earlier. Esterly became a wood carver, and even re-created one of Gibbons' pieces that was destroyed in a fire.

Jean-Marie Blas de Robles' novel Where Tigers Are at Home won France's 2008 Prix Medicis. It's now out in English, and reviewer Alan Cheuse says it will appeal to readers who like the complexity of Umberto Eco, with "an adventure plot straight out of Michael Crichton."