Two new picture books explore how the outside world can transform our relationships with our communities and ourselves.

Zadie Smith's White Teeth marked its 25th anniversary in January. The now canonical novel tells the story of an unlikely friendship between a shy Englishman named Archie Jones and his friend Samad Iqbal, a devout Bengali Muslim. Both men are trying to pass on their religious and moral beliefs to their children.

Asma Khan grew up in India, where late summer means monsoon season. But it wasn't until she moved to England in the '90s that she learned how to cook. At 45, after earning a PhD in constitutional law, she opened Darjeeling Express. The London restaurant made her into a celebrity chef and an authority on Indian food.

Elaine Sciolino has one mantra: "Never go to the Louvre on an empty stomach or with a full bladder." The former Paris bureau chief of The New York Times has written a guide filled with her best advice for enjoying the world's most-visited museum. Her new book, Adventures in the Louvre, is part journalism, part memoir and part art history.

Annie is 37 weeks pregnant. She's shopping at IKEA in Portland, Oregon, when everything around her begins to shake. It's an earthquake – the big one. Unable to get in touch with her husband or anyone else, she starts to walk. This is the setup for Emma Pattee's new novel Tilt, which the author says was inspired by the major earthquake predicted to hit the Pacific Northwest in the next 50 years.

John Kenney's I See You've Called in Dead is about an obituary writer named Bud Stanely. One late night after a particularly bad date and too many glasses of Scotch, Bud drunkenly writes his own remembrance – and hits publish. The newspaper where he works wants to fire him, but can't legally terminate a dead person. But the error sets off a change in Bud's life as he begins to attend the funerals of strangers.

The authors of two new poetry collections aspire to reach broad audiences with their work.

Two new novels explore technology's increasing access to our most intimate thoughts. First, the protagonist in The Mechanics of Memory can't remember her last year. Hope has found herself in a too-perfect mental health facility where she participates in questionable treatment, some involving virtual reality. Audrey Lee's novel follows Hope as she slowly starts to recall pieces of her life and questions what to believe.

In Callan Wink's new novel Beartooth, two brothers live at the edge of Yellowstone National Park. Their father has recently died of cancer, leaving behind unpaid medical bills and taxes. Desperate to save their home, the pair ventures into the park as part of a scheme involving the illegal collection of elk antlers. The novel, Wink says, was inspired by a similar story he heard at a bar.

Lollapalooza is a popular music festival that takes place in Chicago's Grant Park each year. But it was conceived as a farewell tour for the band Jane's Addiction, kicking off with a series of chaotic performances across the United States in the summer of 1991.