Complete book coverage for Sunday, May 3, 2009

Rick Riordan concludes his terrific ‘Percy Jackson and the Olympians’ series with the fifth installment. Keeping the series’ plots straight takes Herculean efforts, but why bother? Just enjoy.

Tools -- > options -- > thoughtful analysis. If only explaining it all were this easy.

Is there anything worse than writing your second novel?

Biographer Gerald Martin perceptively divines the magical-realist making of an enigmatic author.

This formally restrained novel envisions a struggle for independence.

Was Thoreau a nature-loving hermit? Hardly. He was much more than that, as author Robert Sullivan explains in his new book.

Evincing a brainy surrealism, a capable writer is on the make for sturdy truths in an era of spiritual dislocation.

Getting immersed in the author’s creative process.

The Unknown Knowns A Novel Jeffrey Rotter Scribner: 272 pp., $25 For starters, the title is a riff on Donald Rumsfeld’s hilarious 2002 quote: “There are known knowns.

Fiction Weeks on list1.Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer (Little, Brown: $22.99) The final book in the “Twilight” saga finds Bella choosing immortality.38 2.Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer (Little, Brown: $19.99) Bella must choose between her lover and a friend, between life and death.41 3.Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Last Straw by Jeff Kinney (Amulet: $12.95) Greg’s dad enlists him in sports to toughen him up.14 4.Long Lost by Harlan Coben (Dutton: $27.95) Private eye Myron Bolitar takes the case of a woman accused of murdering her ex.45.First Family by David Baldacci (Grand Central: $27.99) A child is kidnapped from a birthday party held at Camp David.16.The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows (Dial Press: $22) A writer corresponds with islanders after German occupation.387.Just Take My Heart by Mary Higgins Clark (Simon & Schuster: $25.95) The case of a man accused of murdering his wife reveals a medical phenomenon.18.Little Bee by Chris Cleave (Simon & Schuster: $24) The lives of two married British journalists and a Nigerian teenager collide. 89.The Associate by John Grisham (Doubleday: $27.95) A law school grad’s dark secret is used to blackmail him into stealing files from a law firm, putting his life in danger.12 10.The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson (Knopf: $24.95) A journalist explores the cold-case disappearance of a Swedish teen heiress. 1311.Turn Coat by Jim Butcher (Roc: $25.95) A wizard detective must uncover a traitor to clear an acquaintance from his youth of murder.312.The Women by T.C.

Fiction 1. Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri ($15) 2. New Moon by Stephenie Meyer ($10.99) 3.

Author and literary events for the week of May 3, 2009