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Soon after Hitler's rise in 1933, writer Heinrich Mann and his wife fled Germany for fear of persecution, joining other intellectuals in exile. Evelyn Juers' House of Exile chronicles the experience of watching a war develop from afar.

Librarian Nancy Pearl loves reading about other people's lives. And while an unappreciative therapist might call that a predilection toward snooping, it won't stop her from gravitating to the memoir section of the bookstore. Here, for your own vicarious pleasure, are some of her favorites.

What happens to your online presence when you die? Evan Carroll and John Romano edit The Digital Beyond, a website that helps users plan what happens to their online content after death. They suggest you start planning now for the inevitable.

Post-modern writer David Mitchell pulls off an old-fashioned yet action-packed tale in his fifth novel, The Thousand Autumns Of Jacob de Zoet. The story follows Jacob, a bookkeeper at an outpost of the Dutch East Indies Company, as he falls for a local midwife in early 19th century Japan.

Based on The Count of Monte Cristo, Alfred Bester's saga The Stars My Destination will transport you off the couch and into a roiling world of futuristic teleportation. Author John Baxter says the book injects new life and energy into a classic tale.

Billy Collins, former U.S. poet laureate, thinks too many poets show off — writing obscure verses that turn many readers off. In his latest collection, Horoscopes For The Dead, Collins strives to write poetry that all readers can appreciate.

In Anne Roiphe's memoir of hard drinking and hard loving in the 1950s, the writer recalls the "The bottomless tumblers; the never-ashed cigarettes" of her youth. But, as Alice Gregory writes, it wasn't all romance and revelry,

Rolling Stone contributing editor Matt Taibbi's columns have been a destination for those trying to understand what happened in the aftermath of the financial meltdown. His new book tries to make the subject even clearer — in the colorful language his readers know well.

Japan has been devastated by an earthquake and a tsunami — but author Marie Mutsuki Mockett has faith in the resilience of the Japanese people. She recommends Yoko Kamio's manga series, Boys Over Flowers, about a young heroine, who embodies Japanese perseverance.

Every day, Americans of different races pass on sidewalks, barely acknowledging one another. But Elijah Anderson, author of Cosmopolitan Canopy: Race and Civility in Everyday Life, says even highly segregated cities harbor spaces that enable all kinds of people to interact.