10 More Great Reads to Pick Up in April

Solar
By Ian McEwan
304 pages; Nan A. Talese/Doubleday
The master of Atonement is back with a story about a womanizing scientist who tries to mend his life by fixing the world.

Imperfect Birds
By Anne Lamott
288 pages; Riverhead
In her fictional mode, the spiritual bard of Marin County, California, explores what happens to the girl she introduced in Rosie (1983).
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Further Adventures in the Restless Universe
By Dawn Raffel
120 pages; Dzanc
Sharp, spare stories about women at, or approaching, the ends of their ropes.
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American Taliban
By Pearl Abraham
272 pages; Random House
Ripped from the headlines: a novel about an American surfer dude who enters a chat room and emerges an Islamic zealot.

Burned
By Louise Nayer
270 pages; Atlas
Nayer looks back at the fire that didn't quite kill her parents but did destroy their lives.
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5 more at-a-glance reviews

The Lotus Eaters
By Tatjana Soli
400 pages; St. Martin's
In this novel of war, an American photographer and her Vietnamese friend come to terms with their romantic past as Saigon falls.
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The First Thing and the Last
By Allan G. Johnson
408 pages; Plain View
A fictional tale of a wife who finally kills the man who abused her, and of the woman who helps her deal.

The House of Tomorrow
By Peter Bognanni
354 pages; Amy Einhorn
A young man lives with his grandmother in a geodesic dome in Iowa. No surprise: He's a total oddball. Yes, surprise: His life makes for a sweet novel.

Backing into Forward
By Jules Feiffer
464 pages; Nan A. Talese/Doubleday
The loopy, octogenarian cartoonist tells his own story, this time in words. Well, mostly.

The Solitude of Prime Numbers
By Paolo Giordano
288 pages; Pamela Dorman/Viking
Two misfits meet and miraculously connect in this debut novel, a prizewinning best-seller in the author's native Italy.
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