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“Easy Beauty” is philosophy professor and Pulitzer Prize finalist, Chloe Cooper Jones memoir. It’s a frank depiction of her life with a congenital condition that affects her height, how she moves and her life with continuous pain- both physical, and always being seen as lesser.

In a mysterious, isolated town, motherhood has a different dimension- mothers sometimes disappear. In the novel “Elsewhere” author Alexis Schaitkin has written an allegory exploring motherhood, individual and community identity.

Three good friends leave Alabama to join the Army, eventually they're stationed in the exotic paradise of Manila. Then Pearl Harbor happened. What followed for U.S. servicemen in the Pacific was horrific. Nebraska author Tosca Lee has co-written a work of historical fiction about this time and place, “The Long March Home: A World War II Novel of the Pacific” by Marcus Brotherton and Tosca Lee.

It’s not often host Pat Leach reviews something other than a recently published book, but a novel from 1936 was mentioned to her that tells part of Nebraska’s story “Take All to Nebraska” by Sophus Keith Winter is the first in a trilogy about a family from Denmark who settled in Nebraska and struggled to adjust to a new land and culture.

During a sweltering week in July, we learn about the people who live in the "Rabbit Hutch", a low-cost housing complex in a decaying Indiana town. The novel “The Rabbit Hutch" by Tess Gunty is a beautiful and funny snapshot of contemporary America.

“Seeking Fortune Elsewhere: Stories” by Sindya Bhanoo. A collection of short stories featuring women who’ve emigrated from Southern India. The collection contains themes universal to the immigrant experience- the cost of staying or leaving your home.

Since it's the 150th Anniversary of Nebraska writer Willa Cather's birth, the guest on this week’s program is Rachel Olsen Director of Education and Outreach at the Cather Center. She’ll talk about their upcoming Spring conference which will spotlight both Cather’s story “A Lost Lady” and her essay "Nebraska: The End of the First Cycle."

Molly is a maid at a luxury hotel who struggles with social skills and understanding the intentions of others. She’s also the chief suspect of “The Maid” by Nita Prose, an uplifting murder mystery.

A therapist finds herself caught in the caregiver sandwich of trying to help her elderly mother as well as her college-age son. Both her mother and son refuse to communicate for their own hidden reasons. The novel is “The Blue Window” by Suzanne Berne.

Linda Villarosa’s new book “Under the Skin” lays out the forces in American healthcare, and society, that cause Black people to “live sicker and die quicker” compared to white Americans.

This week on “All About Books” an interview with History Professor Jim Downs about his research into how modern disease research began and the unsuspected factors that played a role. His book is, “Maladies of Empire: How Colonialism, Slavery, and War Transformed Medicine.”

Only a handful of Jews ever managed to escape the Auschwitz concentration camp. Rudolph Vrba was the first in April of 1944. The remarkable story of how Vrba planned and carried it out is told in the book, “The Escape Artist: The Man Who Broke Out of Auschwitz to Warn the World” by Jonathan Freeland. It’s reviewed this week on

12-year old Cassandra is unable to save her young brother from a tragic accident and his body is never found. This event rends the family apart and the grown Cassandra sees her missing brother everywhere in the faces of strangers. “The Furrows” by Namwali Serpell is a noel as elegy dealing with memories and grief.

Alice is just one of the swimmers at the indoor pool who has a private, daily routine. When the pool is shut down for repairs, we learn how valuable this comforting routine was in holding off Alice’s encroaching dementia.,“The Swimmers” a novel by Julie Otsuka.

When Ada Calhoun came across research her father had collected 40 years ago in his unfinished quest to write a biography of his friend the poet Frank O’Hara, she resolved to finish it herself. The book Calhoun wrote, “Also a Poet” combines literary history, memoir and an honest appraisal of her complicated relationship with her father.

It’s an office of intelligence operatives that will never be mistaken for James Bond. This is the cynical and grubby world of best-selling author Mick Herron. His latest installment in the Slough House spy series is called “Bad Actors”

It’s a journey back to small town life through memories, with Nebraska-native Bob Wirz (weerz). He's written a love-letter to the state he grew up in, “My Nebraska: Rich Memories of Growing Up in Rural Nebraska Decades Ago”. Join "All About Books" host Pat Leach for a conversation with the author,

Set in the Nebraska Sandhills, “Pickard County Atlas” is a slow-burning thriller of 6 fateful days that begin at a murdered boy's tombstone. "All About Books" host Pat Leach has a review of this debut novel by Nebraska author Chris Harding Thornton.

Ponca tribal member Cliff Taylor wanted to give back to his community. He collected stories told to him by members of his family resulting in the book, “The Memory of Souls". Cliff joins “All About Books” to share his motivation for writing and his thoughts on the books that best describe Nebraska to him.

You’ll find realistic and interesting lives in two new graphic novels introduced by Traci Glass Assistant Library Dir for Lincoln City Libraries. “Ducks: 2 Years in the Oil Sands” by Kate Deaton and “Acting Class” by Nick Drnaso