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Ishmael Beah was 12 when he was orphaned by Sierra Leone's civil war and recruited as a child soldier. He described the ordeal in his 2007 memoir, A Long Way Gone. Now, Beah's debut novel, Radiance of Tomorrow, tells the story of a shattered community struggling to rebuild itself after war.

The author of The Secret History returns with a novel about art, love and loss that's drawn comparisons to Oliver Twist and the Harry Potter series. Reviewer Meg Wolitzer says The Goldfinch marks a departure from Tartt's previous work, but it's a rich, absorbing read — all 771 pages of it.

NPR's Scott Simon talks with Howard Bryant of Meadowlark Media about quarterback Aaron Rodgers' injury, the men's basketball World Cup, and rule changes in the NBA.

Relief organizations face mammoth obstacles in getting help to the people and villages in Morocco's mountains that were damaged by the earthquake.

Jenny Offill's new book, Dept. of Speculation, uses anecdotes and bits of poetry to tell a nonlinear story of love, parenthood and infidelity. Offill tells NPR's Rachel Martin that her experiences as a mother inspired the book — but that her own marriage is far less dramatic than the one in her novel.

Rachel Joyce's new novel offers two parallel narratives: the 1972 story of Byron, an anxious schoolboy, and the present-day account of Jim, a supermarket worker who has spent most of his life in institutional care. But critic Ellah Allfrey says that the novel is made up of two distinct and unequal parts.

In A Curious Invitation: The Forty Greatest Parties in Fiction, London-based party promoter Suzette Field offers a guide to literature's most famous and fabulous hosts and their soirees — from Proust and Tom Wolfe to Jay Gatsby and Hollywood Wives.

E.L. Doctorow's new novel goes inside the brain of a neuroscientist trying to outrun his memories of disaster and the daughter he gave up. He tells NPR's Scott Simon that Andrew's Brain was inspired by his own memories, and by a recurring idea of a little girl hiding her colored-pencil drawings from adult eyes.

Harlequin editor Patience Bloom maps romance novels onto her own loves in Romance Is My Day Job — from tragic heroes and beta males to the one true Mr. Right. Reviewer Bobbi Dumas says Bloom doesn't quite pull off the romance novel parallel — but most readers will find something to identify with in this brave and likable woman.

For 44 years, British author Penelope Lively has been publishing children's books, short stories and novels. Her latest book, Dancing Fish and Ammonites, is subtitled "A Memoir," but critic Ellah Allfrey says it is "more a collection of thoughts, a scattering of advice and a reading list to treasure."