Where I'm Reading From: The Changing World of Books by Tim Parks
Being a librarian, a book like this is catnip for me. Why should you read it? Because Tim Parks is a witty, thoughtful, and incisive cultural commentator, and these essays on the difficulty of translating, the negative influence of writing programs, and what is wrong with literary prizes, among other topics, will engage you if you care at all about the state of the book world.

The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson
Poet and critic Nelson has written a memoir about her marriage to fluidly-gendered artist Harry Dodge. In this brave, intellectual, no-holds-barred account, she explores the boundaries and complexities of queer family-making, transgendering, being in love, pregnancy, and the shifting landscape of family arrangements.

33 Days by Leon Werth
The book that Antoine de Saint-Exupery (The Little Prince) smuggled out of France is finally being published in English 70 years after the fact (It wasn't published in France until 1992). Werth's account of his exodus from Paris in 1940 just ahead of the German troops is told through a hallucinatory magical-realist prism, but the truth of it is not compromised: an important document of the Nazi occupation of France.

The World Is On Fire: Scrap, Treasure, and Songs of the Apocalypse by Joni Tevis
Tevis grew up in the Pentecostal heartland of South Carolina and has always had a dreaded fascination with the Apocalypse. In this collection of essays, which can loosely considered to be an apocalyptic travelogue, she visits the Nevada test site, North Dakota ghost towns, the site of Buddy Holly's plane crash, and the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose. Tevis's lambent prose and revelatory insights make this a dark trip well worth taking.

Lord Fear: A Memoir by Lucas Mann
In Lord Fear, Mann delves into the life and death of his older half brother Josh, who died of a heroin overdose when the author was thirteen. Although the book is called a memoir, Mann admits that the stories his brother's friends tell and his own memories are subjective and not necessarily the truth. However, that doesn't stop him from trying to examine the various pieces: shards of memory, Josh's poems and journal entries, and reflections of those who knew Josh in order to make some sense of the void that Josh's death created.

The Ingenious Mr. Pyke: Inventor, Fugitive, Spy by Henry Hemming
A breezily told, rollicking tale about a brainy Jewish boy who becomes a pseudo-James Bond in order to fight the Nazis. Geoffrey Pyke was many things in his short but remarkable life—journalist, stock broker, inventor, educational theorist, and possible Soviet spy—and Hemming confidently guides the reader through all the hairpin turns of his subject's journey. A perfect nonfiction read for fans of Alan Furst's fiction.