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When Twinkies hit the stores again on July 15, their shelf life will be nearly twice as long as it used to be: 45 days. (We were surprised it wasn't longer.) There's a whole lot of food science employed to help the creme-filled cake defy the laws of baked-good longevity.

Patricia Polacco has written and illustrated more than 90 picture books, and she says her early life had a profound effect on her work. In her latest children's book, The Blessing Cup, Polacco takes readers back to her grandparents' time in Russia.

Novelist Kate Christensen has written a food memoir like no other. Although the author's food writing is enchanting, says reviewer Maria Russo, the sloppy, thrilling, innovative Blue Plate Special isn't really about food. It's more concerned with the heartbreak that shapes a creative life.

Spanish novelist Javier Marías is well-known in Europe, but not as popular in the United States. Critic John Powers says Marías' latest work — an unsettling, slightly sinister twist on the mystery novel — ought to raise the author's profile here in America.

In his new book, The Woman Who Lost Her Soul, Bob Shacochis returns to Haiti, but also takes the reader across continents and generations. The 700-page book has been compared to the work of Joseph Conrad, Graham Greene and Norman Mailer.

When Meg Lukens Noonan first stumbled across the expensive coat, her untutored eye saw nothing particularly special. In her new book, The Coat Route, Noonan explores how and why craftsmen spend months creating such luxuries. She also makes an appeal for why the art of tailoring should be preserved.

In The Great Tamasha journalist James Astill notes the parallels between India's control of the cricketing world and its dramatic economic rise. NPR's Krishnadev Calamur says Astill provides a glimpse into how India functions.

In the pages of Marisha Pessl's Night Film, you'll uncover the death of a beautiful woman; her terrifying, filmmaker-father; even a seemingly haunted mansion. But reviewer Meg Wolitzer says that while the book dips into the unsavory and the scary, it stays surprisingly PG.

Thomas Kenneally's new novel, The Daughters of Mars, follows two Australian sisters who become nurses in World War I. Reviewer Jean Zimmerman says the book is "the work of a master storyteller, sharing a tale that is simultaneously sprawling and intimate."

Think of everything your brain processes in a single day: your breakfast, a stain on a book cover, a meeting at work. If you remembered all those things, your brain would reach capacity. Author and neuroscientist Penelope Lewis says sleep helps sort through the memories that are worth keeping.