Everyone should read this absorbing, deeply reported love story, which tears through centuries of history found in Historical Commission archives, copies of the Cambridge Tribune, minutes of organizations and increasingly poignant poems of old white men finding the market to be a metaphor for mortality. Will they, though?

Whether you’re looking for last-minute gift ideas or want to cozy up with a romantic read this week, here are word-focused recommendations from local authors, booksellers at our independent shops and readers.

Jonathan Wilson’s “The Red Balcony” applies a novelistic sheen to a true-life, still unsolved murder set in the Palestine of 1933, a moment swastikas flew over Jerusalem.

In his written peeks into the restaurant industry, as well as a radio show exploring the same territory, Tom Schaudel finds much to be amused by in his dining rooms.

After teaching English literature at Harvard for 10 years, Henriette Lazardis became a full-time writer with a new novel: “Terra Nova,” a story of love, betrayal and adventure set against the backdrop of Antarctic discovery.

Sociologist Jamie McCallum brings his “Essential: How the Pandemic Transformed the Long Fight for Worker Justice” to a Harvard Book Store reading on Tuesday.

The hero of Amy Baron’s “The Gentle Bulldozer” dreams of something bigger than working at construction sites – as Baron did as an optometrist who loved to write.

What inspired Robert Pinsky to begin writing the autobiographical “Jersey Breaks”? A friend who suggested he explain how he “became a poet rather than a criminal.” Pinsky reads Thursday at the Grolier Poetry Book Shop.

Being married to a pastor’s son but knowing she was queer was the starting point for Jeanna Kadlec’s journey out of the evangelical church, but her memoir “Heretic” goes deeper and broader into the religion’s hidden political and social impact.

Home is centered in the debut memoir by Vanessa A. Bee, “Home Bound: An Uprooted Daughter’s Reflections on Belonging.” She reads Tuesday in Porter Square.