New Book Roundups:

Found in Translation

Several books originally written in other languages get released in English this month. China Witness: Voices from a Silent Generation gathers interviews conducted by Beijing-born journalist Xinran with men and women across China who have lived through the rise of communism. The Accordionist's Son by Bernardo Atxaga is a coming-of-age novel set in the Basque country during the Spanish Civil War. In the bilingual Best of Contemporary Mexican Fiction, editor Álvaro Uribe compiles short stories by 16 of Mexico's finest writers born after 1945.

Emerald Isle Ink

In Galway Bay, Mary Pat Kelly presents a fictional retelling of her own family's immigration story, from famine-stricken Ireland to Chicago. In Frank Delaney's latest historical novel, Shannon, an American veteran of the Great War comes to Ireland in search of his family roots but finds himself in the middle of another war—civil war following the 1921 Treaty with Britain.

Adventurers' Tales

In The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon, David Grann sets out to discover what happened to British explorer Percy Fawcett during his 1925 quest for a hidden ancient city in the Amazon, a journey from which he never returned. Near Death in the Arctic, edited by Cecil Kuhne, collects the amazing true stories of 14 adventurers—from Norwegian Captain Roald Amundsen to Ernest Shackleton—in the frozen north. In Mad Dogs and an Englishwoman, British author Polly Evans immerses herself in the world of dogsledding, including following the 1,000-mile Yukon Quest race between Fairbanks, Alaska, and Whitehorse, in Canada's Yukon Territory.

Reading Matchmaker: If You Like . . .

. . . French Impressionist paintings, check out Pictures at an Exhibition, by Sara Houghteling. This debut novel centers around Max Berenzon's quest to recover masterpieces looted by the Nazis from his father's Paris art gallery during World War II. Real paintings by Manet, Matisse, Morisot, and Vuillard figure prominently as Berenzon navigates post-war Paris and the terrible legacy of the Holocaust to recover his family's art collection.