This season's Talking Volumes regional book club selections will transport readers into the lives of American Indian teens, an interracial adoptive family and a beloved crime-fighting World War II veteran from Los Angeles. Be sure to mark your calendars for:

Sept. 26 Sherman Alexie

The Spokane/Coeur d'Alene poet, short-story writer, screenwriter and novelist has had an especially busy run, completing his first novel in 10 years and following quickly with a companion novel for young adults. "Flight" (Black Cat/Grove) tells the story of an abandoned teen, born of an Irish mother and Indian father, who is "dying from about ninety-nine kinds of shame." He is armed and about to blow when he is time-whisked back into the minds and bodies of, among others, an FBI agent during the 1970s and an Indian child during the Battle of Little Big Horn. "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian" (Little, Brown), Alexie's first novel for young adults, features an endearingly self-deprecating and resilient teen who makes a fraught decision to attend school off the rez.

Oct. 16 Ann Patchett

Patchett, of Nashville, follows "Truth & Beauty," her nonfiction account of an extraordinarily complex friendship, with a fictional account of an equally complex Boston family. In "Run" (HarperCollins), protagonist Bernard Doyle is navigating life as a widower, single father and disgraced mayor. He and his wife, Bernadette, had had one biological son and adopted two black brothers when she died of cancer. Doyle has given up hope for his ne'er-do-well oldest son and tries vainly to impose his dreams of political ambition on the adoptees. But one is obsessed with studying fish at Harvard and the other is leaning toward the priesthood. It's a test of whether father knows best and a challenge to our notions of what defines family.

Nov. 15 Walter Mosley

In Mosley's popular mystery series, hard-boiled detective Ezekiel (Easy) Rawlins, denizen of Watts and World War II vet, has tangled with drug smugglers, spies, bank robbers and serial killers. In "Blonde Faith," the 10th installment, he comes home to find a girl on his doorstep, abandoned by a friend who is forced on the run. Worse, his lover has left him and his best friend, Mouse, has disappeared. Mosley must not only put together the pieces of his fragmented heart, he must race to find his two friends - fending off con men, drug dealers and corrupt government officials along the way. "He's an unusual character for America, inasmuch as he's a black male hero," Mosley said in a 2005 National Public Radio interview. "There are not a lot of black male heroic characters in America - not that you just respect, but that you want to be like."

Talking Volumes, now in its eighth year, is a partnership of the Loft Literary Center, Minnesota Public Radio and the Star Tribune. Watch for profiles of these authors in the Star Tribune and study guides for their work at www.loft.org. MPR's Kerri Miller interviews the authors on the above dates at 7 p.m., Fitzgerald Theater, 10 E. Exchange St., St. Paul. Tickets are $15, $12 for members of MPR, the Loft or Talking Volumes. A spring lineup of Talking Volumes authors is in the works.

Sarah T. Williams is the Star Tribune Books editor.