Somewhere near the top of the short list of dreaded medical diagnoses is Alzheimer's disease. And how much more tragic is it when that disease strikes someone long before old age has descended? That dark prospect is the subject of 24-year-old Stefan Merrill Block's compassionate, heartbreaking, funny and consistently engaging first novel, The Story of Forgetting.

Seth Waller is a precocious, some would say "geeky," 15-year-old living outside Austin, Texas. When his mother Jamie's merely annoying forgetfulness morphs into a strain of early onset Alzheimer's known as EOA-23, Seth embarks on a stealthy "empirical investigation" seeking the roots of her disorder. Along the way, he meets victims of the disease and their family members, their encounters played out in scenes both vivid and poignant.

Paralleling Seth's story is that of Abel Haggard, an elderly hunchback spending his dwindling days in a ramshackle house near Dallas, on what's left of what was once a thriving farm. Abel bears the searing memory of having fathered a child with his sister-in-law while his twin brother Paul served in the Army. Like Seth, his life has been scarred by the loss of family members to Alzheimer's. The novel's narrative unfolds deliberately, revealing how the lives of Abel and Seth are inextricably linked. That some may discover the source of their connection relatively early in the book does nothing to detract from its emotionally resonant final scenes.

Interspersed with the main narrative are fascinating chapters entitled "Genetic History," describing the role of the Mapplethorpe family of England and its descendants in spreading the EOA-23 gene across the globe. Alongside this science are enchanting mythological tales of a land called Isidora, "where every need is met and every sadness is forgotten." In an author's note, Block reveals the prodigious research that informs and enriches this story. Yet he never permits that research to eclipse the storytelling skills on display in this accomplished first novel. His own family history spurred an interest in Alzheimer's, since many of his mother's relatives, including his maternal grandmother, suffered from the disease. The only question about what's sure to be his eagerly awaited next work will be whether he can discover another subject about which he cares so passionately and speaks so eloquently.

This spellbinding debut novel set in the north woods of Wisconsin resonates with the reader on many levels. The Story of Edgar Sawtelle is a mystery, a coming-of-age tale and a deeply emotional exploration of the often inexplicable ties between dogs and their owners.

Starting with Edgar's grandfather in the 1920s, the Sawtelles have been dedicated to the breeding and training of dogs – a mission they have painstakingly carried out not by tracing pedigrees, but by a unique, intuitive method of tracking behavioral and personality traits. Edgar, Gar and Trudy Sawtelle's only child, is born mute, but he is perceptive beyond his years, and his ability to communicate with the kennel dogs using his own brand of sign language is uncanny.

Born at nearly the same time as Edgar is the dog Almondine, and they forge a heart-rending bond. Author David Wroblewski, who grew up not far from where the book is set, paints his characters with a keenly empathetic brush. His passages that revolve around human-dog relationships are especially memorable. Scene after scene etches itself in our minds, such as when Edgar races back to the house from his father's gravesite near the ceremony's end to retrieve Almondine, who had inadvertently been left behind. She sits her "wise haunches down," and together they watch the casket descend.

Wroblewski's seemingly bucolic plot takes a menacing turn when Edgar discerns foul play behind his father's sudden death. In addition, he is inwardly enraged by the attention his mother is showering on his uncle Claude – Gar's brother, with whom he had always been at odds. Edgar's dreams of his father become painfully realistic; he feels his presence as if all his father's own memories were being given, somehow, to him.

An accident for which Edgar feels partially to blame propels him, along with three of his dogs, into the surrounding Chequamegon forest, only sparsely dotted with tiny towns and isolated cabins. The struggle of this steadfast quartet to survive, and learn to trust not only each other, but strangers, constitutes a harrowing coming-of-age saga, culminating in Edgar's return home, and the violent, somehow preordained conclusion that awaits him. The Story of Edgar Sawtelle is an unforgettable debut – one to savor, to share, and even, despite its length, to re-read.

Deborah Donovan, a dog person, has spent part of each summer since childhood in the Chequamegon National Forest.

When faced with an interminably long airport delay, which is all too common these days, the traveler has several options. He could spend the endless layover drinking at T.G.I. Friday's. He could reread The Da Vinci Code or some other book found at the airport newsstand, or spend as much time as possible interacting with his cell phone rather than his fellow travelers. Or, if he were Bennie Ford, the hero, if you can call him that, of Jonathan Miles' first novel, Dear American Airlines, he could write a book-length letter of protest to the airline that grounded him and blamed the weather when there's not a storm in sight.

Bennie has reason to be angry. He was on his way from New York to Los Angeles to attend his daughter's wedding. There's more anger surrounding the fact that he hasn't seen his daughter since she was a baby and that he never really tried to clean up his life so that he could be part of hers.

The letter reads like a sort of deathbed confession, a tale of the sins he has committed and the wrongs done to him, the story of a man who grew up with a schizophrenic mother who was always half-heartedly attempting suicide and an immigrant father who survived the concentration camps only to become an exterminator himself. A formerly somewhat famous poet who struggled for years with alcoholism, Bennie is now a translator, and his letter also shares the story of the book he is working on – the tale of a World War II soldier mistakenly sent to the wrong town, who wonders what would happen if he never got back on the train to his old hometown.

This gritty, hilarious, heartbreaking novel illustrates a life gone awry, the regret of years lived without notice and the hope of finally being able to make a change. Readers will root for Bennie to get on his plane and start making up for the lost years when he gets off. A perfect read for summer airport delays, Dear American Airlines just might get readers thinking differently about that idle time.

Sarah E. White writes from Arkansas and still hates flight delays.

When the legendary newsman Edward R. Murrow was having difficulty figuring out this new thing called television, his producer, Fred Friendly, gave him some invaluable advice: Look for the little picture. Chris Cleave, in his breathtaking debut novel Incendiary, has taken Friendly's advice and used it to devastating effect.

The story takes the form of a series of letters from a British woman to Osama bin Laden, who is presumed to have been the mastermind behind the soccer stadium bomb that killed her husband and son. Speaking in a stream-of-consciousness style, Cleave's protagonist is by turns serious, frightened, amused, betrayed, angry, hopeful and overwhelmed. 

"I'm going to write so you can look into my empty life and see what a human boy is from the shape of the hole he leaves behind. I want you to feel that hole in your heart and stroke it with your hands and cut your fingers on its sharp edges," she says. Her life, a lower-middle-class melange of imperfection and dreams, has literally been blown apart by the terrorist act, and she tries desperately to hold the pieces together. Cleave's writing is masterful in its understatement: the horror comes not from the vision of a jet careening into a skyscraper, but from the realization that a black stain on your child's stuffed rabbit is his scorched blood. By focusing on the little picture, Incendiary imparts a message both personal and political, timely and timeless, passionate and poignant. This quick read leaves a profound mark.