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Manuel Gonzales' ambitious debut novel has a great hook — a top secret organization battling aliens, zombies and evil masterminds — but dry humor and spirited dialogue get lost in a convoluted plot.

While still at university, J.R.R. Tolkien became fascinated by Finnish mythology, abandoning his Classics degree to adapt the epic Story of Kullervo — work that led to the creation of Middle Earth.

Universities have changed significantly since the Middle Ages. James Axtell describes just how far higher education has come in his new book, Wisdom's Workshop.

You forget someone's name, or why you ran downstairs. Your brain is getting older, and the connections are weakening. But research shows the middle-aged brain is actually operating at its peak.

The Complete Wimmen's Comix collects two decades of the groundbreaking all-women series. Critic Etelka Lehoczky calls it a "frenetic, anarchic, occasionally kamikaze production."

Julia Ward Howe wrote the Civil War psalm The Battle Hymn of the Republic. She was adrift in a lonely war of her own, against a husband who controlled every aspect of her life, including what she ate.

Katie Roiphe's The Violet Hour is a meditation on mortality in which she describes the last days of Maurice Sendak, Sigmund Freud, Susan Sontag, John Updike, James Salter and Dylan Thomas.

In 13.7 blogger Alva Noë's latest book, he shows that in art, it's our most intimate, lived experience and us as individual world-builders that comes into view, says commentator Adam Frank.

Ken Liu's new The Paper Menagerie collects 15 of his Hugo and Nebula Award-winning stories. Critic Amal El-Mohtar calls it "stupendously good work" that strikes chords profound enough to hurt.

Helen Oyeyemi's new story collection has all the sly humor, gorgeous writing and magical characterization as her novels. Critic Michael Schaub calls it a dreamy, spellbinding masterpiece.