In ‘What the Taliban Told Me,’ Ian Fritz recounts what led him to war in Afghanistan, and how it changed him.

‘The Axeman’s Carnival,’ by Catherine Chidgey, is a darkly comic tale of a woman’s relationship with a magpie.

Jessica Anthony’s darkly comic novella is a Cheeveresque meditation on mid-century middle-class disappointment.

The week’s top-selling fiction and nonfiction books at Nonesuch Books & More in South Portland.

Camille Bordas’ novel mines the neuroses and dramas underlying our jokes.

The week’s top-selling fiction and nonfiction books at Longfellow Books in Portland.