New & Recommended

Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy
By Barbara Ehrenreich

A fascinating, quirky, and thought-provoking analysis of communal celebration

(Metropolitan, $26).

Inés of My Soul

By Isabel Allende

This female account of the early years of Chile's history raises a number of interesting questions (HarperCollins, $25.95).

Measuring the World
By Daniel Kehlmann

A vivid re-creation, in novel form, of the lives and times of scientists Alexander von Humboldt and Carl Friedrich Gauss (Pantheon, $23).

What Is the What: The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng
By Dave Eggers

Humor and tragedy inform this tale of a real-life war orphan (McSweeney's, $26).

On Agate Hill
By Lee Smith

A story of the South, from Reconstruction to the Roaring Twenties, that casts a powerful charm (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, $24.95).

Selected from books recently reviewed in the Globe.