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Auster's latest delivers six decades worth of thoughtful anecdotes in second-person narration. The memoir is as unconventional as his first, The Invention of Solitude, and covers everything from his relationship with his mother to the houses where he's lived.

Stanley Crouch, one of the nation's most prominent jazz critics, is the author of the just-released Kansas City Lightning -- part one of a biography of Charlie "Bird" Parker. Reviewer Craig Morgan Teicher says the story starts a little slowly, but when Parker picks up the saxophone, Crouch's writing cooks.

Before World War II, numerous Jewish emigrants left Lithuania for South Africa. In his debut novel, Kenneth Bonert tells the story of a family among their number. As reviewer Ellah Allfrey writes, despite a few rookie mistakes, that story is told with great inventiveness and care.

Set at the turn of the century within the grand houses of Princeton, The Accursed is populated with specters, demons and even a vampire. But the real monsters in Joyce Carol Oates' chilling tale are the members of Princeton's elite, who preach from the pulpits and judge without compassion.

Dime Stories Brings Performance and Prose Together

The five interconnected Patrick Melrose novels may first seem like vapid tales of the wildly rich, but to author Mark Saunders they're also harsh dramas about the excesses of the British upper crust. What's your favorite story of the upper class? Tell us in the comments.

A letter released Thursday from U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta confirms the government's decision to deny a posthumous Medal of Honor to San Diego Marine Sgt. Rafael Peralta. Peralta died in 2004 in Fallujah, Iraq.

NPR comics critic Glen Weldon has a new, comprehensive biography of the classic American hero: Superman. Reviewer Elizabeth Graham says Weldon's survey of the Man of Steel's many lives in Superman: The Unauthorized Biography is "reliable, witty and informative."

Reporter-turned-novelist Gene Kerrigan sets his story in Ireland after the 2008 financial crisis. The Rage is a boundlessly readable portrait of a country in which ordinary citizens have been hit the hardest and all the old certainties have vanished.

When aspiring Broadway actress Catherine and World War II vet Harry first lock eyes on the Staten Island Ferry, everything changes — but their lives together won't be easy. Mark Helprin delivers an old-fashioned love story, and an ode to 1940s New York, in his novel In Sunlight and in Shadow.