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Two years ago, Allison Russell's breakthrough album took the roots music world by storm. Now nominated for the genre's highest honor, Russell has a new goal: to open Americana up even more.

Johnny Mims and his school band were wrapping up their last song when Birmingham police insisted the performance stop immediately. The confrontation ended with Mims tased in front of his students.

For the first time, Witold Gombrowicz's 1967 Polish novel Cosmos has been translated directly into English. Wordplay and aphorisms don't get lost in the translation of this feathery existential crisis — in which two men obsessively hunt down the person responsible for the death of a sparrow.

Ernest Hemingway famously told The Paris Review that he'd rewritten the ending to A Farewell to Arms 39 times before he was satisfied. Those endings — and more — are being published in a new addition to the classic novel. But the writer's grandson, Sean, says Hemingway always knew the book would end sadly.

Michael Chabon's new novel, set on the border between Berkeley and Oakland, Calif., takes stylistic cues from jazz, soul and funk music. It's formally playful, and even when it misses the mark, it's still satisfying to watch Chabon work, says NPR critic Glen Weldon.

Michael Chabon's sprawling novel features a multiracial cast of characters, from gay teens to former blaxploitation stars. It's a celebration and gentle sendup of the countercultural norms and racial politics of life in the Bay Area, revolving around efforts by two men to save their record store.

Sky looking a little slatchy to you? Want another helping of slang-jang? The final volume of the Dictionary of American Regional English, a 50-year project to document English across the U.S., is a treasure trove of history and local color.

In Karen Thompson Walker's first book, climate change makes the Earth's rotation grow more and more sluggish, but this melancholy page-turner is more than just a disaster plot.

Fawzia Koofi almost died on the day she was born, but survived against all odds and became the first female deputy speaker of Afghanistan's parliament. Koofi plans to run for president in two years, and in a new memoir, describes her hopes for the country's future.

In the bucolic setting of The Twin by Gerbrand Bakker, the joys and pitfalls of sibling rivalry are given new life. Author Amy Waldman says the book's sparse prose and stark setting provide the backdrop for a moving story of familial resentment.