Book Critic Maureen Corrigan's Best of 2004

author and poet Ocean Vuong on his new novel, "The Emperor Of Gladness." Set in a fading Connecticut town, the book follows a suicidal young man whose life takes an unexpected turn when he becomes the caretaker of an elderly woman with dementia. Loosely inspired by Vuong's own experiences growing up in a working-class immigrant family in Glastonbury, Connecticut, the novel explores themes of chosen family, survival and the quiet resilience of everyday life.

Straub's new novel is a time-travel fantasy about a 40-year-old woman who's tending to her ailing father — until, that is, the day she's transported to her childhood home on her 16th birthday.

After years as a reporter, Avi Issacharoff co-created an action series about an elite unit of the Israeli military whose members work undercover in the West Bank. Fauda is now streaming on Netflix.