A couple of interesting paperbacks came out earlier this month. Bantam has reprinted “The Mule” by Juan Eslava Galan (translated from the Spanish) because it is about to be made into a movie. The story, which is a satirical take on the absurdities of war, involves a simple mule driver who is determined to keep his companion — a mule named Valentina — after the end of the Spanish Civil War. The book follows the pair on their long odyssey back to their home.

Also new in paperback is “Letters to Sam: A Grandfather’s Lesson on Love, Loss and the Gifts of Life” by Daniel Gottlieb. The moving nonfiction book is about the letters Gottlieb wrote to his grandson, Sam, upon Sam’s birth. He wrote the letters because he was afraid he would not see Sam grow into adulthood, because Gottlieb is a quadriplegic. But the bond between the two grows only stronger when Sam is diagnosed with a form of autism.

Two new works of fiction are available this week from popular writers. Lisa Lutz follows up her success with “The Spellman Files” with “Curse of the Spellmans,” which again involves the antics of a dysfunctional family of detectives. This one centers on daughter Izzy and her suspicions that the next door neighbor is up to something sinister.

And Jeffrey Ford — an Edgar Award-winning author — is back with “The Shadow Year,” which is a Book Sense pick for April. In this new “literary mystery,” Ford sets a story in a 1960s-era suburb on Long Island. Told by an adult man looking back — that old unreliable narrator trick once again — the story centers on a young boy growing up with a father who always works and a mother who always drinks. The mystery involves someone who is kidnapping children in the quiet neighborhood. Now that doesn’t play into our collective suburban paranoia, does it?