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In her new book, Nell Bernstein says America's juvenile justice system is overdue for reform. Time in jail as a child or teen, she says, is the best predictor of adult criminality and incarceration.

At its core, StoryCorps founder Dave Isay says, the project is about letting people know their lives matter and won't be forgotten. The result often means that listeners have a good cry on their way to work. As the oral history project marks its 10th anniversary, NPR will be revisiting some of your favorite stories.

The women of Jezebel.com have released a new illustrated encyclopedia of "lady things" from Clueless to Clytemnestra. Reviewer Annalisa Quinn says that although The Book of Jezebel is positioned as lighthearted and unambitious, it has a serious aim — which it does not quite achieve.

In The Pure Gold Baby, a budding anthropologist raises a developmentally disabled child and confronts the challenges of middle age. This is a surprise comeback for author Margaret Drabble, who swore in 2009 that she'd never publish fiction again.

Donna Tartt's new novel The Goldfinch follows a motherless boy and a priceless painting in the aftermath of a terror attack. It's only her third novel in 21 years. Tartt tells NPR's Scott Simon that she started thinking about art, money and fate after stumbling across an art exhibition in a Las Vegas casino.

Vast distances and cultural differences may separate America's states, but remarkably, regional rivalries are fairly trivial. This unity is no accident; it's the legacy of the explorers, leaders and inventors who brought the country together. British author Simon Winchester tells their stories in The Men Who United the States.

Former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in 2007. Heraldo Munoz, who led the United Nations investigation into her death, portrays the tense political climate that surrounded Bhutto's return to politics and the circumstances of the killing in his new book.

Novelist Robert Stone may not have the name recognition of some of his buzzed-about contemporaries, but his works have won top honors in the writing world. Critic Rosecrans Baldwin thinks Stone's latest, Death of the Black-Haired Girl — full of characters whose evil-doings are "a pleasure to watch" — might give him a shot at mainstream acclaim.

Robert Gordon's new book explores the tragedy and triumphs of one of the most unlikely soul labels, an integrated business that produced hits such as Sam and Dave's "Hold On, I'm Coming" and Otis Redding's "Try a Little Tenderness."

For many young readers, Dahl is a beloved author. But to Lucy Dahl, he's also Dad. "Matilda was one of the most difficult books for him to write," she says. "I think that there was a deep genuine fear within his heart that books were going to go away and he wanted to write about it."