Partitions, by Amit Majmudar

This first-time novelist has helped us to travel that brief but crucial distance, from words on the page to dreams in our minds and hearts, and made this bitter, brutal time somehow reachable.

Growing up in both India and the U.S., Amit Majmudar wasn't entirely sure where he belonged — until he found the library. "I became a citizen of the library," he tells NPR's Renee Montagne. "And to this day, I feel at ease only in a crowd of books. In some ways, I feel like I am a book, to be honest with you." Majmudar straddles professional worlds as well — in addition to being Ohio's first ever Poet Laureate, he's also a radiologist. [From NPR's Morning Edition]