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The term "Rube Goldberg machine" has become shorthand for a convoluted contraption made up of a series of chain reactions. But Goldberg was also a real person, whose ideas for whimsical devices have captivated imaginations for decades.

Katherine Applegate's The One and Only Ivan was inspired by a real-life gorilla who lived in a mall in Tacoma, Wash. The author says humans have "a real obligation" to care responsibly for animals in captivity.

Chuck Palahniuk aims for piquant social satire in his new novel, but reviewer (and longtime fan) Jason Sheehan finds his fandom severely dented by lazy characterizations and lack of actual satire.

Ready for a Halloween scare? Reviewer Etelka Lehoczky says these graphic novels and compilations — packed with creepy cults, alien monsters, gravediggers and ghosts — are just the ticket.

Iain Banks' last novel, The Quarry, follows awkward teen Kit, his dying father Guy, and a group of Guy's former friends as they search for a possibly incriminating videotape. Reviewer Ellah Allfrey says The Quarry isn't Banks' best work, but "it doesn't disappoint."

Patrick Flanery's taut new novel, Fallen Land, delves into the housing crisis, creeping corporate surveillance and a "crisis of neighborliness" in American life. The backdrop: a half-built and crumbling subdivision outside of an unnamed American city.

In Mrs. Robinson's Disgrace, Kate Summerscale reconstructs the everyday private life and very public shaming of Isabella Robinson, a wife sued for divorce over her scandalous diary entries in the early days of England's divorce court.

Since the 1961 publication of the Third International Dictionary, people have debated the merits of dictionaries that describe language as it is and those that explain how it should be. Today the debate continues, but it doesn't hold the same cultural significance as before, writes Geoff Nunberg.

In his new memoir, Allen Kurzweil goes looking for his childhood tormentor — and discovers he's served time for involvement in an international fraud scheme so wild and colorful, it could be a movie.

Sara Gruen is following her bestselling Water for Elephants with a tale of a young American couple who travel to Scotland during the Second World War in search of the legendary Loch Ness Monster.