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Three novels of past and present: Lynn Neary reviews the "perfect" novel for our down economy — written before the banks failed. Steve Inskeep reads a tale of events in Cicero's Rome.

Set in the buildup to Indonesia's 1965 civil war, Tash Aw's Map of the Invisible World is the story of a 16-year-old boy on a quest to find his stepfather.

Film critic Leonard Maltin's new book is called 151 Best Movies You've Never Seen. Some of his picks featured giant stars like Jack Nicholson in less famous roles, and some starred complete unknowns. Maltin shares a few of his favorites.

Cathleen Falsani's book, The Dude Abides, examines the way the Coen brothers inject elements of religion into their films, from The Big Lebowski to A Serious Man.

Author P.D. James' newest book is a personal meditation on her chosen genre, a look at its built-in limitations and the heights to which it has climbed in the century and a half since it was invented. Reviewer Jennifer Reese says Talking About Detective Fiction "whets your appetite" to read more.

Martha Woodroof reviews the new novel by Sadie Jones, the author of The Outcast. Small Wars is about the conflict faced by a British couple involved in the "Cyprus Emergency" of the mid-1950s.

The best-selling British historian has chronicled the lives of great ladies including Eleanor of Aquitaine, Mary Queen of Scots and Elizabeth I. Now she's written a new biography of Elizabeth's mother, Anne Boleyn — and Weir says much of what you may think you know about the ill-fated queen is just plain wrong.

The atom bombs dropped on Japan in 1945 killed — by some estimates — more than 200,000 people. In Hell To Pay, military historian D.M. Giangreco argues that the alternative, a land invasion of Japan, would have been many times more deadly. Japanese estimates, Giangreco says, set the figure at 20 million.

Wil Haygood talks to Steve Inskeep about the life and career of Sugar Ray Robinson, including his many fights against rival boxer Jake LaMotta. Haygood is the author of a new biography of Robinson called Sweet Thunder.

If you're looking for a certain type of quality introspection on '80s grunge, you won't find it in Neil Strauss' ghostwritten glimpse into Motley Crue. But author Charles Bock wasn't looking for something poignant — he was looking for something real. He found it.