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A week has elapsed since a ceasefire ended an explosion of violence between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The truce has so far held, despite some disputed incidents which have left one Palestinian dead and a group of Gaza fishermen in Israeli custody. Egypt, as mediator, is now holding separate talks with both sides to hammer out detailed agreements on key issues, including easing Israel's blockade of Gaza, and preventing weapons being smuggled into the region.

In his new novel, The Testament of Mary, Irish author Colm Toibin imagines Mary's life 20 years after the crucifixion, as she wonders what she might have done differently to ease her son's suffering. "I felt that I was Mary," he says. "I was her consciousness, watching the thing happening."

Before Agatha Christie wrote Death on the Nile or Murder on the Orient Express, she took her own, less perilous, journey around the world in 1922. Her grandson Mathew Prichard has now published a volume of her letters and photographs from the trip.

If you're the kind who secretly obsesses about the fundamental nature of reality but wouldn't know a boson if it was delivering roses at your doorstep, I have good news for you.

In his new book, journalist Gregory Johnsen charts the rise of Yemen as a haven for al-Qaida and explores the recent history of radical Islam in the Arabian Peninsula. The death of Osama bin Laden, he says, had more of an effect on the U.S. psyche than it did on people in Yemen.

Hilary Mantel is the first woman to win the Man Booker Prize twice, first for her 2009 novel, Wolf Hall, and now for that book's 2012 sequel, Bring Up the Bodies. The novels are part of a historical fiction trilogy about Tudor England and the events surrounding the reign of King Henry VIII.

Just before her 30th birthday, Ellen Forney received a diagnosis that finally explained her super-charged highs and debilitating lows: bipolar disorder. In Marbles, a new graphic memoir, Forney recalls both the pain and the humor of her path to stability.

Eight days of Israeli missile strikes on Gaza killed a lot of children — and terrified many more. Yet in this war zone, the task of healing psychological wounds is handled a little differently. The children of Small Hands Kindergarten are barely more than toddlers. Led by their teachers to a public square, they wave toy guns at imaginary Israeli jets overhead and stomp on a poster bearing the Star of David. Yet this kindergarten isn't run by Hamas — it's run by supporters of Fatah. These young children are part of a chorus of voices calling for an end to the two rival factions who rule Gaza and the West Bank respectively.

The momentous life of Pulitzer Prize winner William Styron is now chronicled in more than 1,000 of his letters compiled by his widow, Rose Styron. The collection is called, Selected Letters of William Styron.

For his new book, archivist Todd Andrlik tracked down 18th century newspapers to provide a sense of the Revolution as it actually unfolded. Andrlik says the newspapers preserve things that didn't make it into history textbooks — like the fact that the Boston Tea Party was not universally popular.