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Lionel Shriver has never shied away from contentious topics. Her latest novel, Big Brother, tackles the hot-button issue of obesity as doll-maker Pandora deals with her brother — washed-up jazz pianist Edison — and his massive weight gain.

Sherman worked a tight niche: classic songs rewritten to tickle a Jewish audience's funny bone. A new biography, Overweight Sensation: The Life and Comedy of Allan Sherman, explains how the performer's 1960s crossover fell in line with a collective awakening to ethnic identity in America.

Philipp Meyer's second novel is a centuries-spanning family saga that chronicles the growth of Texas. Many hands are bloodied in the novel's conflicts: between settlers and Native Americans, between Texan ranchers and Mexicans, and finally, between ranchers and the oil men who take over the land.

Some novels you read to find out what happens next, and some you read to linger in the moment. In Tom Drury's Pacific, plot takes a back seat to sharp observation and deadpan wit. The book juxtaposes scenes of teenaged Micah as he moves to Hollywood, with stories set in Micah's heartland hometown.

Mark Kurlansky's book Ready for a Brand New Beat is a history of the song "Dancing in the Street." It was the soundtrack for the summer of 1964, when race riots and war protests spread across the United States.

Read an exclusive excerpt of Allen Salkin's new history of the Food Network, From Scratch. It's an affectionate but unsparing look at a scrappy little startup network that became a national broadcasting behemoth — and brought people like Emeril Lagasse and Rachael Ray into millions of homes.

Do big league hitters have naturally faster reflexes? Are African-Americans predisposed to be better athletes? In his new book, Sports Illustrated's David Epstein says science now has answers — or at least insights — to all these questions.

Austrian writer Adalbert Stifter's 1845 novella Rock Crystal is the seemingly simple tale of two children who get lost in a snowfall on Christmas Eve. But author Susan Choi says the story perfectly captures humanity at its humblest and most resilient.

After the Civil War, pursuing butterflies was more than a pastime for many Americans — it was a passion. In his book, Butterfly People, William Leach chronicles the infatuation, from its European roots and natural-history tradition to its eventual fall.

Patricia Polacco has written and illustrated more than 90 picture books, and she says her early life had a profound effect on her work. In her latest children's book, The Blessing Cup, Polacco takes readers back to her grandparents' time in Russia.