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What should you read this weekend? USA TODAY suggests Sadie Jones' The Uninvited Guests and China Mieville's Railsea.

Héctor Abad creates a sociopolitical portrait of Colombia through the telling of his family’s story.

Toni Morrison, whose novel “Home” enters the hardcover fiction list at No. 9 this week, remembers being confronted by a stark image of race relations as a freshman at Howard University.

Jonathan Franzen’s essays express his love of birds and of writers, especially his friend David Foster Wallace.

At 64,000 members and counting, the Twitter-based reading group 1book140 is a global concern.

What's buzzing in the books world today?

This week, Joe Klein talks about Jonah Goldberg’s “The Tyranny of Clichés”; Jeff Shesol discusses Eric Alterman’s history of liberalism from the New Deal to the present; Julie Bosman has notes from the field; and Gregory Cowles has best-seller news. Sam Tanenhaus is the host.

Paperback books of particular interest.

Recently reviewed books of particular interest.

Phillip Lopate on the transitional moment for essays.

Lucia Perillo’s two collections, poems and stories, draw upon her experiences in a world that often hurts her.

With a Venusian transit imminent, 18th-century astronomers risked their lives for a chance to measure the solar system.

A firefight with Iraqi insurgents is caught on tape and turns a band of soldiers into media heroes in Ben Fountain’s satire.

Fleeing the pressures of academia, Thad Ziolkowski’s Midwestern hero is sucked into his family’s schemes and strife.

The paleontologist Richard Fortey searches out species that have endured hundreds of millions of years of planetary turmoil.

Jonah Goldberg accuses liberals of lazy thinking and worse.

Eric Alterman’s history of liberalism from the New Deal to the present concentrates on the men and women who have defined it.

In Paul Theroux’s novel, an American seeks a fresh start in Africa after a 40-year absence.

Whether in Paris or the Great Plains, failures to communicate fray the relationships in these tales.

A great audiobook experience depends on the reader as much as the text.