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As a librarian and a reader, Nancy Pearl scours the shelves in search of hidden treasures — titles you may have missed. Her findings include two chilling thrillers, one exquisite 1960s memoir, a lively biography of George Orwell, an example of historical fiction at its very best, and much more fiction, nonfiction and poetry.

His third novel, Super Sad True Love Story, is a black comedy set in a futuristic America — where books don't exist and where the economy has collapsed. Shteyngart explains why he decided to write a love story in this dystopic vision of the future — and why he thinks technology is changing the way we think.

Few people have heard of Julio Lobo, but his history is intertwined with that of his home country. Lobo was Cuba's richest businessman until the revolution drove him into exile.

Some of jazz's all-time greats will play a legendary festival in the seaside Rhode Island town next weekend. Not all the acts are quite so well-known -- but many of them deserve to be. Hear music from Fly, Gretchen Parlato, Arturo O'Farrill and the Matt Wilson Quartet.

The Daily Beast editor chats with Renee Montagne about the best things she's been reading lately. The focus this month: the perils and pleasures of the personal chronicle, whether it's on the Internet, in a diary, or in a juicy tell-all memoir.

Thriller writer Richard North Patterson knows about engrossing political dramas — he served as the SEC liaison to the Watergate special prosecutor. As his favorite thriller, he recommends Allen Drury's Pulitzer Prize-winning Advise and Consent, a political novel that still rings true after 50 years.

Vacuous pop stars, a hygiene-challenged photographer and corrupt politicians all play a part in Carl Hiaasen's new satire of the industry that both makes and breaks celebrities.

Megan Stack hadn't planned on becoming a war correspondent. But then Sept. 11 happened, and she found herself in the Middle East — the beginning of a seven-year stint of wartime reporting. In Every Man in This Village Is a Liar, Stack reflects on the experience of reporting from war-torn countries.

After sailing the Antarctic Sea and traversing the deepest Tibetan gorge, Peter Heller became a "kook," or beginner surfer. It was while surfing in Huntington Beach, Calif. that he caught a glimpse of his next great adventure: a trip down the West Coast, in search of the perfect wave. In Kook he tells the story of that journey, and what he learned along the way.

Influenced by both The Sopranos and Marcel Proust, Jennifer Egan takes her readers on a swirling, playful ride through time in A Visit from the Goon Squad, a novel of linked short stories — including one told as a PowerPoint presentation — that defies categorization.