Amy Reiter

That polygamous Mormon sects can be, in reality, a lot more sinister and disturbing than, say, HBO’s soapy “Big Love” may not surprise you. But you may be alarmed to learn, from a young man who experienced it firsthand, just how horrifying life within the cloistered compounds of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints was under leader Warren Jeffs. Those of us who remember the FLDS “president, prophet, seer, and revelator” from the TV coverage of his 2006 arrest can summon images of a gawky, bland-looking fellow being led around in handcuffs. “Lost Boy,” an unflinchingly honest, brave and riveting memoir by the FLDS leader’s nephew Brent W. Jeffs, will replace those relatively benign images with far more graphic ones …

In Brief: “Lost Boy” by Brent W. Jeffs (The Barnes and Noble Review)

Nowadays, when you’re standing on long, snaky lines, clutching your discount e-ticket and waiting to shuffle shoeless through airport security, it’s hard to remember that air travel was once a glamorous, exotic adventure enjoyed only by the well-dressed rich. While today we think of flying as something to be endured, when commercial air travel began less than a century ago, it was something to be enjoyed. In 1929, when Charles Lindbergh’s Transcontinental Air Transport offered the first air-rail passenger service across the country, you might have boarded a Ford Tri-Motor aircraft wearing your finest fur coat, been served an elaborate lunch on real china with gold-plated utensils, and watched sheep scatter across farmland through curtain-clad windows you could open for air …

In Brief: “Flying Across America” by Daniel L. Rust (The Barnes & Noble Review)

You could call Emily Chenoweth’s “Hello Goodbye” a coming-of-age book. Abby, a young woman vacationing with her parents before her sophomore year in college, sheds her childhood innocence and stumbles into adulthood in this gentle, almost delicate story. But it’s also more than that. Seductive and sad as a late-summer breeze, this debut novel is an exploration of aging, of enduring friendships, of the complicated relationships between parent and child, and of love, old and new …

In Brief: “Hello Goodbye” by Emily Chenoweth (The Barnes & Noble Review)