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Mark Harris' new book takes a look at five American directors who made films for the War Department during World War II — and how those films changed both their work and American cinema.

Joyce Carol Oates' new Carthage explores the familiar but important territory of family anguish. Oates has written more than 40 novels — critic Alan Cheuse praises her prodigious imagination, and says her latest effort is a "roller coaster, demon-twister" of a ride.

The Office writer B.J. Novak's new story collection covers everything from carrot cake to artificial intelligence. Reviewer Heller McAlpin says the book has a few too many things packed into it, but overall, the collection is "wildly promising."

Michael Benedikt was an exemplary poet, a dedicated editor and an agoraphobic recluse. His work was almost lost forever — until two poets rescued his archive and published a selection, Time is a Toy.

The poet describes his new book — about the death of his father and the birth of his son — as having a blues sensibility. "There are moments of humor even in the sorrow," he says.

In 1998, the novelist befriended a rich, eccentric, art-loving Rockefeller — or so he thought. Kirn explores the man's lies in Blood Will Out: The True Story of a Murder, a Mystery, and a Masquerade.

In The Empire of Necessity, historian Greg Grandin tells the story of a slave revolt at sea. The 1805 event inspired Herman Melville's Benito Cereno, and Grandin's account of the human horror is a work of power and precision.

Brigid Schulte and her husband planned to have an equal partnership. But years down the road, "I realized that we had both fallen into very traditional roles without even realizing it," she says.

Quindlen's novel Still Life with Bread Crumbs is predictably comforting and readable, even as it details the challenges of a modern middle-aged woman: the fallout of divorce, a career on the wane, and the endless financial and emotional support demanded by her family.

Anjan Sundaram's new memoir Stringer chronicles his adventures as a budding journalist in one of the world's most chaotic spots: the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Reviewer and veteran journalist Ted Koppel says Stringer "is a book about a young journalist's coming of age, and a wonderful book it is, too."