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Coming out as a teenager can be difficult. That's why finding Rubyfruit Jungle was important for author Emily Danforth. The book's lesbian narrator helped her figure out who she wanted to be. Have you ever found a book that helped you understand yourself better? Tell us about it in the comments.

Roger Ebert tackles lowbrow and highbrow topics alike in his memoir; critic John Powers says the chronicle is sunny and hopeful — just like Ebert himself.

In 2009, New York Post reporter Susannah Cahalan was hospitalized for one horrific month because of a rare disorder. After recovering, she remembered almost nothing about the ordeal, so she decided to find out what happened. Her new book provides a remarkable reconstruction of the events of her sickness.

In fiction, Charlotte Rogan explores a shipwreck, while Thomas Mallon revisits Watergate. In nonfiction, Laurent Dubois considers Haiti afresh; Lawrence Krauss reinterprets the universe; and Alain de Botton finds value in religion for atheists.

Rachel Cusk's novel centers on a writer and mother recovering from divorce who teaches a summer course in Athens, Greece. The narrator has 10 conversations filled with holes, lies and self-deceptions.

For her latest collection, Claudia Rankine mined her and her friends' encounters with racism. She says she wanted to talk about "what happens when we fail each other as people."

Cartoonist Bill Griffith discovered as an adult that his mother had had a 16-year affair with another man, also a cartoonist. In Invisible Ink, he digs into the secrets surrounding his family.

Emma Donoghue's latest follows a nurse in 19th century Ireland who agrees to monitor a famed fasting girl. But both the unsympathetic nurse and the credulous villagers are hard to like or understand.

Jennifer Hayden's graphic novel is, on the surface, the story of losing her breasts to cancer. But she sets that narrative within a host of other life experiences, making room for joy, hope and humor.

The characters in Ottessa Moshfegh's new collection are cold, unfiltered, frequently pathetic — all suffering from unease and nameless longing, made understandable by each perfectly-built story.