Set in a starkly beautiful North Dakota community, “The Mighty Red”, a novel by Louise Erdrich, reveals ordinary people who are complicated and contradictory as they struggle, dream, and love.

This week on All About Books” Pat Leach talks with author Kevin Shinn a former collegiate pastor, chef and restaurateur. His lifelong spiritual journey eventually led him to his typewriter where he worked out his latest book, “A Different Metaphor: Faith That Imagines The Impossible.”

It’s a day in the lives of a team of 6 international astronauts as they orbit the earth. There are mundane daily tasks, solitude, as well as profoundly moving vistas of the fragile earth below. “Orbital: a Novel” by Samantha Harvey, winner of the 2004 Booker Prize, is reviewed on this week's "All About Books."

Two women with opposite personalities share a house in the Dutch countryside during the summer of 1961. Suspicion between them becomes obsession in the novel “The Safe Keep” by Yael van der Wouden, a tale about the legacy of World War 2 and the darker corners of the past.

It’s 1921 in Panang Malaysia where the novel “The House of Doors” introduces real events and people, like the writer Somerset Maugham, along with fictional characters. The sunset of British Empire is the backdrop for this tale about the complicated nature of love and friendship.

“How to Read a Book: a Novel” by Monica Wood is an honest and hopeful story of struggling with guilt, second chances, and how books can change a life.

Most towns have a library of some sort, but did you know there’s a library at the South Pole? Some libraries are hidden in remote deserts, in phone booths and trees. “All About Books” host Pat Leach talked with author Diana Helmuth about her new book, “Hidden Libraries: The World’s Most Unusual Book Depositories”

Irish novelist Colm Toibin’s latest book is “Long Island” which continues the life story of Eilis Lacey, the complex and enigmatic heroine from his previous best-seller, “Brooklyn”

In her award-winning novel “The Wren, The Wren” author Anne Enright creates 3 generations of Irish women who contend with their inheritances- which includes charismatic, poetic men and sometimes ill treatment.

If you need gift ideas this holiday season, “All About Books” has great suggestions. Tory Hall of Sower Books has ideas for book lovers into history, nature, mysteries, romance and horror. It’s the annual gift guide for the holiday shopping season.