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The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec by Jaques Tardi features a beautiful, gun-wielding detective and a horrifying prehistoric monster. Author Rosecrans Baldwin explains why this is no ordinary comic book. Do you have a favorite graphic novel? Tell us in the comments.

In Who Could That Be at This Hour?, a prequel to A Series of Unfortunate Events, Daniel Handler satirizes pulp mysteries and uncovers the parallels between detective fiction and childhood. In both, he says, an outsider is trying to make his way in a mysteriously corrupt world.

Jarrett Krosoczka's lunch lady doesn't just serve lunch. She serves justice. In her Batman-like lair below the cafeteria, she can monitor the whole school for suspicious characters like the Cyborg Substitute or the Video Game Villain. Join NPR's Backseat Book Club as we follow her adventures.

More than 20 years ago, Dr. Hawa Abdi set out to change her broken society when she turned her 1,300-acre farmland outside Mogadishu into a camp for 90,000 internally displaced Somalis. Now she calls it Hawa Village — and it includes a hospital, school and farm.

David Sedaris' latest essay collection, Let's Explore Diabetes With Owls, mixes his trademark quirky observations with less successful fictional asides in which he takes on the voices of assorted ultraconservative bad guys.

Full of sex, intrigue and clues based on Victorian poetry, Elanor Dymott's Every Contact Leaves a Trace is a literary mystery about a murder at Oxford University. This tale of a clueless husband who discovers his wife's true nature too late reminds critic Maureen Corrigan a little of Gone Girl.

Screenwriter, director and producer Chris Columbus has teamed up with young adult novelist Ned Vizzini to write a book about the adventures of Cordelia, Brendan and Eleanor Walker. In House of Secrets, the three siblings, ages 8 to 15, find themselves in a fantastic world after a family move.

Irish cookbook author Rachel Allen shares a recipe for Molly Malone chowder, a soup inspired by the Irish folk song about a doomed fishmonger.

Ezekiel Emanuel, elder brother to Chicago mayor Rahm and Hollywood superagent Ari, has written a new memoir about his family and growing up Jewish in inner-city Chicago. It's called Brothers Emanuel, and yes, he does discuss middle brother Rahm's talent for ballet.

The rich and good-looking get a taste of life among the 99 percent in Jonathan Dee's novels. In A Thousand Pardons, his protagonist, Helen Armstead, finds a secret talent for getting powerful men to apologize after her marriage falls apart and she is forced to enter the working world.