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Colson Whitehead's Zone One describes the aftermath of a mysterious plague that has swept the world and turned billions of people into zombies. Whitehead talks about his zombie nightmares, why he decided to destroy New York and what makes a "successful" apocalypse.

Novelist Julie Otsuka returns with a tale of Japanese "picture brides," while singer Shania Twain shares her account of overcoming poverty and divorce to hold her own as a country music star.

When gold was discovered in Alaska and Canada in the 1890s, thousands packed their bags and headed north, knowing little of the troubles they would face. Howard Blum writes about their adventures in The Floor Of Heaven: A True Tale of the Last Frontier and the Yukon Gold Rush.

Jess Row's provocative Your Face in Mine uses the rhetoric of transgender experience to imagine a world where race can be changed; reviewer Amal El-Mohtar calls it a grating meditation on white guilt.

A new biography of the Russian political prankster/author/revolutionary Edward Limonov asks what turns out to be an unanswerable question: What's Limonov thinking, and what does he really want?

Boredom in the immobility of a quadriplegic. Ennui in a Manhattan high-rise cubicle. Monotony in the slow-moving life of a writer. Said Sayrafiezadeh takes a look at everyday drudgery, highlighting three great memoirs that found inspiration in dullness. Life can be boring, he says, but books offer a way out — whether we're reading or writing them.

Novelists are famously prone to self-imposed exile and introspection; sometimes, they invent characters who are similarly solitary. Author Rachel Louise Snyder recommends three compelling books starring such loners. She says their isolation isn't what's compelling, but it's riveting to watch these recluses step back into the world of others.

Bridget Jones hasn't aged well. At 51, she's the "geriatric mum" of two small children, and finds herself yearning to plunge back into dating. Critic Maureen Corrigan says if you're looking for jolly feminist cultural commentary, you'd be better off reading a witty "encyclopedia of lady things" from the creators of the website Jezebel.

Former IT consultant Graeme Simsion's debut novel, The Rosie Project, is a scientific romp about a probably-Asperger's-affected genetics professor who falls in love with a free-spirited woman during a search for her biological father. Reviewer Heller McAlpin says it's an "utterly winning screwball comedy."

When writer Lynn Darling found herself at a turning point in her life, she sought solitude and enlightenment in the woods of Vermont. Her new memoir, Out of the Woods, describes that midlife experience. Fresh Air book critic Maureen Corrigan calls it "a compelling story of internal exploration, as well as outward-bound adventure."