Adam Gollner's The Book of Immortality explores the possibility of life after death, as well as the power of faith. Here, the author tours the sites that inspired the book, finding nothing and everything.

The Reason I Jump, by autistic Japanese teen Naoki Higashida, joins a recent spate of books featuring autistic characters. We talk with novelist David Mitchell about how translating Higashida's book into English transformed his understanding of his own son's autism.

Robert Coover's The Origin of the Brunists taught us something about the cult mentality: people will believe anything if they need to. And that belief will hold as long as people can shield themselves from evidence to the contrary--but can anyone, anymore?