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The Borgias are more than just a TV show. Reviewer Lizzie Skurnick says Blood & Beauty by Sarah Dunant shows readers the authentic people behind the pomp and circumstance.

Thousands of soldiers died at the Battle of Gettysburg, but that number might have been higher had it not been for Jonathan Letterman, chief medical officer of the Union's Army of the Potomac. In Surgeon in Blue, Scott McGaugh explores Letterman's long-lasting legacy.

Congressman John Lewis has co-authored a new graphic novel about the 1963 March on Washington, which he helped plan. Reviewer Jody Arlington says March: Book One is a "fresh and sometimes shocking work," with a message of reconciliation and hope that still resonates.

A dead body and a hotel bombing trigger the plot of Black Star Nairobi, the latest crime novel from Kenyan-American author Mukoma Wa Ngugi. Detectives Ishmael Fofona and David Odhiambo search for the perps during the upheaval around the Kenyan elections in December 2007.

Bohumil Hrabal's novel, I Served The King Of England, about a Czech waiter who barely survives World War II, may sound dire but author Anthony Marra says that if you allow yourself to be sucked in, you'll enter a story so ethereal you'll practically float.

Hungarian author Laszlo Krasznahorkai is known for his dense, challenging fiction. But reviewer Jason Farago says Krasznahorkai's latest book to appear in English, Seiobo There Below, is a "brighter and more open" work, involving a goddess's search for perfection, and the glorious and overwhelming effect art can have on us.

Hugh Howey is the author of the dystopian WOOL series, about a future in which the remains of humanity are living underground in giant self-sustaining silos. The first volume of WOOL was a self-publishing sensation; the latest volume, Dust, has just been released.

Rose George spent several weeks aboard a container ship to research Ninety Percent of Everything, her book about the shipping industry. She writes, "There are more than one hundred thousand ships at sea carrying all the solids, liquids and gases that we need to live."

In a new book, aviation consultant Mark Gerchick writes that "the magic of air travel has morphed into an uncomfortable, crowded and utterly soulless ordeal." He talks about how it's gotten so bad, why there are so many hidden fees and if there actually is less leg room than there used to be.

Stephane Michaka's novel Scissors fictionalizes the last 10 years in the life of short story master Raymond Carver and Carver's difficult relationship with his legendary editor Gordon Lish. Reviewer Jane Ciabattari says Scissors is an "empathetic exploration of an author's soul."