John Minchillo's The Snow Whale is an amusing swipe at race and culture, in which a mild office worker, upon discovering he's part Inuit, sets out to join "his people" in their annual whale hunt.

_{Photo: Atticus Books}

Drago Jancar's The Galley Slave tracks Johannes Ot's travels through late-medieval Europe as he flees from the plague and the paranoid pious of the Inquisition. Feverishly paced and deliriously fun, Ot's episodic exploits crackle with a relentlessness akin to an old, familiar adventure novel.

Review of Drago Jancar's The Galley Slave

_{Photo: Dalkey Archive}

Richard Feynman, who worked on the Manhattan Project and was an early pioneer of quantum mechanics, is one of the few physicists who have also enjoyed significant status in popular culture - as a result of his accomplishmments, his quirks, and the sheer volume of books written by and about him. Add to this ouvre, Jim Ottaviani's and Leland Myrick's graphic autobiography, Feynman.

Review of Feynman

_{Photo: First Second Books}

The Journals of Spalding Gray is something of a deep dive into the famous monologist's anxieties and self-analysis. Don't get me wrong. I love Spalding Gray. I watched his movies and attended his performances when came to Boulder's Chautauqua Auditorium. For me, that's about the right level of exposure to Gray's boundless self-absorption. For you? Who knows? Read on.

_{Photo: Knopf}