Last time around — with “A Slight Trick of the Mind” — author Mitch Cullin brought back the character of Sherlock Holmes, bewildered by the post-World War II world (particularly how progressive science led to so much death and destruction). In his new novel, “The Post-War Dream,” Cullin once again takes on the issues of aging and loss. He uses his father’s Korean War service and his mother’s cancer in this work of fiction, set in a retirement community in Arizona.

Also new in fiction is “Mudbound,” in which author Hillary Jordan — who won the Bellwether Prize for the unpublished manuscript of this work — sets a story about six individuals in the post-World War II American South. The novel tackles racism and life in rural American.

In nonfiction, “Twenty Chickens For A Saddle: The Story of an African Childhood” is Robin Scott’s memoir about growing up in Botswana, living first in a converted cowshed and later on their own farm in South Africa. In their second home, they find the apartheid mentality lives on, despite the fact that it has been technically ended.