Margaret Renkl's vivid and original essays capture the cycle of life in a new book that will make you want to stay put, reread and savor everything about the moment.

Ayşe Papatya Bucak's debut collection is full of musical, lyrical stories that occupy a dreamscape of Turkish culture, art history and surprise encounters between humans, ghosts and djinns.

Jill Heinerth's memoir leads with her thoughts as she wonders if she will die underwater, setting the tone for an honest and engaging book about life as one of the world's top cave divers.

The triumph of this book is how Bathsheba Demuth pulls seemingly disparate threads together into a net of actions and consequences from which the whales, the Yupik, and our children can't escape.

Ian Urbina combines stellar investigative reporting skills and straightforward writing to convey what lies on the other side of the ocean — opposite cruise-ship vacations to beautiful beaches.