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Anita Diamant — who also authored The Red Tent — tells the story of Addie Baum in her latest novel. Baum is a Jewish girl, born in 1900 to immigrant parents in Boston's North End.

Ha Jin's new spy novel resembles the story of the real-life Chinese agent Larry Chin — and echoes the expat author's own experiences. But, he notes, a writer's life is less political than a spy's.

Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama made history Thursday night by accepting his party's nomination for the presidency. He's the first black American to hold such a major party nomination. To the cheers of an estimated 84,000 people at Denver's Invesco Field, Obama said America has had "enough" of broken politics and doesn't want John McCain to continue "the failed policies of George W. Bush."

In Texas last year, 45,200 student athletes were tested for steroids under a tough new program for high schools. The most frequently tested were football players. Only 19 athletes tested positive. Some say that's proof that the testing deters kids from using drugs, while others say the program is flawed.

On Left Hand, Mancari positions themselves in the eye of sonic storms to communicate emotional truths with startling clarity.

Miriam Toews' new novel is based on an awful true story: The drugging and rape of women in a Mennonite colony in Bolivia. Toews says she wanted to show the women as real humans, not isolated cultists.

Author Rosie Schaap's new memoir, Drinking With Men, chronicles her life in bars. Schaap writes the 'Drink' column for The New York Times Magazine, and she says goes to bars not for the alcohol but for the sense of community she finds there.

Fall is tarantula mating time in the plains of southeastern Colorado. The small city of La Junta is celebrating the spiders' season of romance with its second annual tarantula festival.

Donna Cooner's new young adult novel, Skinny, follows Ever, an obese teenage girl who decides to have weight loss surgery. Reviewer Jennifer Longmire-Wright says Skinny is the start of an important conversation for overweight teens — but doesn't adequately portray the difficulties of surgery.

The novel is about two sisters, aged 12 and 15, who travel cross-country after their mother abandons them. Reviewer Meg Wolitzer says that not only the characters are adrift in this book, the story itself seems unsure of what it wants to be.