Girls gone wild

How feisty females took over pop culture

Somewhere, Jane Austen is aghast. Queen Victoria is about to blow a gasket. And your sweet little great-grandmother, the one apt to blush when the word "corset" came up in mixed company, is positively apoplectic.

'Follow Me' by Joanna Scott is our editor's Book of the Week

Joanna Scott, one of my favorite writers, returns to the past in this novel, the MacArthur Fellow's 10th work of fiction. While Scott possesses a fierce tenderness in her backward glance, each book is wildly different in structure and tone. In this most recent work, set in the unforgiving farmland and beginning in 1946, Scott evokes six decades of a woman's life, telling the classic American story -- the act of self-creation -- with urgency, beginning when Sally Werner leaves her infant boy on the kitchen table and disappears, leaving readers to follow.

Palm Island death inspires 'Tall Man'

The English navigator and explorer Capt. James Cook named a lot of islands when he claimed Australia's eastern coast for King George III, in 1770. But Palm Island was among the most beautiful -- a tropical Shangri-La blessed with sandy beaches, enchanting coves and enough vegetation to sustain a colony of Robinson Crusoes.

Theresa Schwegel nails down Chicago

'Last Known Address'

Chicago is the crime fiction capital of the world. Just ask any of the great writers (Sean Chercover, Barbara D'Amato, Michael Allen Dymmoch, Kevin Guilfoile, Libby Hellmann, Sara Paretsky, Marcus Sakey and others) who gather regularly at a blog called The Outfit.

Buses, a troublesome whale and the parts of a backhoe

'I'm Your Bus'

'The Second Plane' by Martin Amis

September 11: Terror and Boredom

IT would be too easy to read Martin Amis' slim book on Sept. 11 in a day and to dismiss it with a politically correct glare. The dozen essays, columns and reviews and two short stories in "The Second Plane: September 11, Terror and Boredom" are more illuminating than that, though deeply, sometimes self-indulgently flawed.

'The House of Widows' by Askold Melnyczuk

Family secrets lie at the end of a dark and twisted path

FROM its puzzling opening line ("The most common grammatical error is the lie"), there's an ominous vibe to Askold Melnyczuk's third novel, "The House of Widows," and the sense of unease lingers until the final sentence. It's a mysterious, masterfully taut story in which dread plays a prominent role.

'Marco Polo' by Laurence Bergreen

An account of the adventures of the celebrated 13th century world traveler.

MARCO POLO was only 17 when he departed for China in 1271 with his father, Niccolò, and his uncle, Maffeo. Those two merchants of Venice were known to the boy primarily as storytellers of their fabulous exploits, writes award-winning biographer and historian Laurence Bergreen, for they had been absent more than 16 years, Marco's entire childhood. The pair had followed trade routes east, encountered exotic countries and customs and survived many perils; they had even lived for a time at the court of Kublai Khan, the leader of the Mongol Empire. Eventually they agreed to accompany his emissary west to the pope, vowing to return to Cambulac (Beijing) with several items the Great Khan had requested.