Truth in Comedy

This manual on improvisation reads, at times, like a cult manifesto: There are certain things you must do, and others you must never do. But the information and instruction are presented convincingly. One tenet that seems counterintuitive at first but right on second thought is that agreement is funny. Another is that telling "jokes" is the surest way to doom a scene.

The God Boy

Ian Cross's 1957 novel might be compared to The Catcher in the Rye, but it is more sincere and affecting than that earlier work. Cross evokes place (New Zealand) and adolescence beautifully with small details, and succeeds, improbably, by having as his narrator a 13-year-old recounting three days in the life of his 11-year-old self. Religious mania, family dysfunction, sibling love, small-town life — it's all wrapped up in one package of nearly flawless prose.

The Theme Is Freedom

This 1950s collection of travel and political pieces by John Dos Passos allowed him to look back on his youthful enthusiasms with a more seasoned eye. The challenge with a book whose author has moved across the political spectrum is, basically, to be honest. Dos Passos thought Sacco and Vanzetti were innocent in 1927; it would ill-serve his credibility as a member of the right to throw overboard his meticulous and heartfelt defense of them then, and he doesn't. Whether sympathetic to the early Communists, the IWW or, later, more free market thinking, the thread that links all of these ideas is found in the book's title, but more specifically in a defense of the individual against giant organizations.