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Before the roses and the romance, Valentine's Day commemorated the Roman Saint Valentine — Valentinus, in Latin. And in her new cookbook, Nigellissima: Easy Italian-Inspired Recipes, chef Nigella Lawson offers up simple recipes that celebrate the cuisine of the country Saint Valentine called home.

The rate at which American women are having babies fell again in 2011, continuing a decline that's been under way for years. Births to teenagers hit another low, while births to older women rose slightly.

To some, Detroit may be a symbol of urban decay; but to journalist Charlie LeDuff, it's home. In Detroit: An American Autopsy, he says the city's heart beats on. "We're still here trying to reconstruct the great thing we once had," he tells Fresh Air's Dave Davies.

In fiction, Christine Sneed's short stories about the perils of love, Peter Carey's tale of a mechanical bird, and Nell Freudenberger's portrait of a trans-Atlantic marriage arrive in paperback. In softcover nonfiction, Tom Holland charts the rise of Islam.

In her new book, The Real Jane Austen: A Life in Small Things, author Paula Byrne shows how everyday objects helped shape Austen's life and literature. One example, a topaz cross, a cherished gift to Austen from her brother, plays an important role in Mansfield Park.

"Mister hit Josephine with the palm of his hand across her left cheek and it was then she knew she would run." So begins Tara Conklin's debut novel, The House Girl, which links the stories of an artistically talented 19th-century slave and an ambitious 21st-century lawyer.

Reporter-turned-novelist Gene Kerrigan sets his story in Ireland after the 2008 financial crisis. The Rage is a boundlessly readable portrait of a country in which ordinary citizens have been hit the hardest and all the old certainties have vanished.

No good deed goes unpunished, and no one escapes Ismail Kadare's satire in this madcap indictment of Balkan totalitarianism. Set in Albania during WWII and its aftermath, The Fall of the Stone City is an incisive, biting work by a master of dark comedy.

Journalist Lawrence Wright's new book, Going Clear, is a penetrating look at Scientology and its famous practitioners. The book centers on Crash and Million Dollar Baby screenwriter Paul Haggis, who famously left the church over its support for an anti-gay marriage initiative in California.

Investigators in Europe have revealed evidence that hundreds of soccer games were fixed by gambling syndicates. The scandal even includes national teams competing for places in soccer's biggest tournament: the World Cup.