Books that grace many summer reading lists are often filled with tales of daring exploits and steamy liaisons. And it would be all the more compelling if those stories were true. Well, relatively true. Yale University Press has released a new biography on the audacious life of Italian adventurer, Giacomo Casanova. Book critic Joan Baum has this review.

Writer Iris Smyles hails from Long Island. However, her scant on-line biographies identify her place of residence as, “somewhere." That will give you a sense of her quirky and whimsical writing style. Book critic Joan Baum read her latest work, “Droll Tales.”

“Her Last Affair,” the latest novel by author and Connecticut native, John Searles is described as a thriller. Book critic Joan Baum says it’s more than just a page-turner.

A new novel by writer William Carpenter examines the lingering bitterness created by the 9/11 attacks and how people struggle to manage profound loss.

A beach on Long Island was the site of a little known act of attempted sabotage during World War II. That incident inspired historical fiction author Eve Karlin’s latest novel.

WSHU commentator David Bouchier has gathered his “few well-chosen words,” and published them in his latest book, Out of Order.

A new biography of Abraham Lincoln explores the president’s efforts to build a plan that would heal a nation recovering from a civil war.

A remarkably wise, slyly humorous and compassionate review of the year Keller spent gardening with his Connecticut “clients” (as he calls them) — cancer patients, special needs children, kids in juvenile detention facilities.

Book Critic Joan Baum went into her archives and rediscovered a novel that imagines what happened to author Herman Melville during his “silent years.”

The story, set in part on Gardiners Island in Long Island Sound, is intended as a tribute to Henry James’s massive 1904 novel The Golden Bowl.