Webster County Library

There’s never a dull moment for the explorers in these picture books.    

The plain heroine of Paul Rudnick’s novel is transformed.    

Brandon Sanderson’s hero longs to join a magical cadre.    

A primer on the Federalist Society and its extraordinary influence.    

Jill McCorkle returns to the fictional Fulton, N.C., in her sixth novel.    

In Jennifer Haigh’s linked stories, restlessness and regret loom over a Pennsylvania coal-mining town for generations.    

A diary washes ashore, linking a teenager in Japan and an author in Canada in Ruth Ozeki’s latest novel.    

A collection of short stories by the Russian writer Nikolai Leskov, a contemporary of Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy.    

Albert Camus’s writing on Algeria reveals both hope and dread.    

Arnon Grunberg’s hero wants to throw his daughter the best party ever.    

Mark Mazzetti argues that the C.I.A. gave up its traditional functions as it embraced manhunting.    

The author of “Waiting to Be Heard” says that reading Marilynne Robinson’s “Housekeeping” in prison helped, because it explores themes of loneliness and alienation.    

The writer Colm Toibin reflects on his first experience as a Broadway playwright with “The Testament of Mary,” which was nominated for a top award and announced its closing on the same day.    

Paperback books of particular interest.    

Recently reviewed books of particular interest.    

In early-20th-century America, two powerful men were engaged in a contest to possess the world’s most remarkable watch.    

A mysterious Fabergé egg encodes secrets at the heart of Danielle Trussoni’s second tale of evil fallen angels..    

Peter Dimock’s narrator, haunted by the treatment of political detainees, writes to a former Bush administration official.    

Anne Perry’s novel “Midnight at Marble Arch” is a sweeping and scandalous exposé of sexual brutality amid the upper classes.    

New books by Chip Walter, Jesse J. Prinz, Torkel Klingberg and Ray Kurzweil.