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Feeling Sheepish Hans Breuer, Austria’s last wandering shepherd, seems like a terrific character for a novel. He’s got comic potential: Picture this middle-aged man in a wide-brimmed hat, singing folksongs while he ushers his flock through Alpine villages past bemused locals. He’s got a serious side, too: In addition to being something of a relic by profession, Breuer is conspicuous as a Jew in a country that has yet to come to terms with its Nazi past….

THE LANGUAGE OF BAKLAVA By Diana Abu-JaberPantheon. 330 pp. $23…

PARIS: The Biography of a City By Colin Jones. Viking. 566 pp. $29.95…

PRINCE OF FIRE By Daniel Silva. Putnam. 369 pp. $25.95…

MIDNIGHT AT THE DRAGON CAFÉ By Judy Fong Bates. Counterpoint. 315 pp. Paperback, $14…

THE ALMOND PICKER By Simonetta Agnello HornbyTranslated from the Italian by Alastair McEwen…

MISFORTUNE By Wesley StaceLittle, Brown. 529 pp. $23.95…

Some of the most fascinating books on modern African American history have recast the civil rights movement as an expansive freedom struggle with visionary goals that reached beyond domestic legal battles and attained global significance. During the past quarter-century, these writings have shown that black political militancy sought not just civil rights legislation but also broader political and economic gains. Rather than assuming that this militancy was carefully orchestrated by Martin Luther King Jr., contemporary historians have increasingly directed their attention to the grassroots leaders who spearheaded local struggles for black advancement. They insist that leaders of national civil rights groups…

SARAH’S LONG WALK The Free Blacks of Boston and How Their Struggle for Equality Changed America…

Join David S. Reynolds, author of John Brown, Abolitionist, for an online discussion on Tuesday, April 26, at 3:30 p.m. The first chapter is available online at www.washingtonpost.com/books.