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This week marks the release of Bartlett's Familiar Black Quotations. Which leads us to the question: Just what is a black quote, anyway?

Each Lenten season, Christians travel to Rome to visit a different martyr's shrine each day. The pilgrim-worn path, which dates back to the dawn of Christianity, includes some of the city's most striking churches and historic art. Theologian George Weigel, author of Roman Pilgrimage, says the journey grounded his faith in real places and people.

On her Hyperbole and a Half blog, Allie Brosh writes stories about her life illustrated with a "very precise crudeness." Most are lighthearted — about her dog or her favorite grammatical mistake ("a lot" vs. "alot) — but her most popular posts have also been the most upsetting, about her crippling depression.

Rachel Joyce's new novel offers two parallel narratives: the 1972 story of Byron, an anxious schoolboy, and the present-day account of Jim, a supermarket worker who has spent most of his life in institutional care. But critic Ellah Allfrey says that the novel is made up of two distinct and unequal parts.

Jenny Offill's new book, Dept. of Speculation, uses anecdotes and bits of poetry to tell a nonlinear story of love, parenthood and infidelity. Offill tells NPR's Rachel Martin that her experiences as a mother inspired the book — but that her own marriage is far less dramatic than the one in her novel.

Despite being the daughter of a child psychologist and self-help author, Jessica Lamb-Shapiro has spent most of her life recoiling from the self-help industry. But eventually, her curiosity got the best of her. She tells Fresh Air about self-help's high- and low-brow iterations and the ways the industry helped her address her fears.

Ann Patchett got married and divorced young. When she met the man who would eventually become her second husband she said: "I'll be true, I'll be faithful, I'll see you every day ... but I don't want to get married and I don't want to live together." Her new book is This Is The Story of a Happy Marriage.

Essence might be the longest-running magazine for black women, but the authors of a new book, The Man From Essence, say that the road to building the brand had many twists and turns.

The Rise and Fall of Great Powers — the latest from Imperfectionists author Tom Rachman — follows the travels of a young bookstore proprietor. It's a "strange" book that requires a bit of patience.

Also: NPR Books launches a new series called "Book Your Trip"; David Levithan on why it's important for LGBTQ characters to be well represented in YA novels.