Jae-Ha Kim

Born in Sao Paulo to Korean parents, author Samuel Park is a dual citizen of Brazil and the United States. “I left Brazil at age 14 (for Los Angeles), so my Portuguese is pretty fluent, even though I don’t have any Portuguese-speaking friends,” says Park, 36. “But I watch Brazilian soaps obsessively every day! So I can understand the language as well as I did 20 years ago. My Korean, incidentally, is quite weak, and much worse than my Portuguese.”

When bill collectors called the Crews house, they talked to Kambri, the hearing child of deaf parents. Today, Kambri Crews, a 40-year-old author, having watched her charismatic father beat her mother, tells her compelling life story filled with love, hope and fear, in her thoughtful and sly memoir “Burn Down the Ground” (Villard, $25). One of the more unique places that Crews travels to is the Texas prison where her father is serving a 20-year sentence for the attempted murder of a girlfriend.

With multiple best-selling books under the belt, Kyung-sook Shin has rock star status in her native South Korea. Now the 48-year-old author is ready to enter the international market with her latest book, “Please Look After Mom” (Knopf, $24.95). The touching novel — about a family that doesn’t appreciate their mother until after she has mysteriously disappeared — sold more than a million copies in Korea. It has since been released in more than 20 countries and debuted May 1 at number 14 on the New York Times Best Sellers list.

“Because I have a lot of property and horses, I am always moving something heavy and rarely sitting down,” says Linda Eder, who’s best known for her work on Broadway in “Jekyll & Hyde.” “I also like to do home remodeling, which is hard work. I’m always overdoing it. So when I go on vacation I like to really go on vacation — meaning I like to rest, without too many distractions. I like to lie in the sun by the ocean, eat great food and relax.”

Seth Webster (James Van Der Beek) is a widowed father trying to raise a pair of unruly boys. When the twins drive off yet another nanny, he hires a kindly and angelic woman named Mrs. Merkle (Doris Roberts) to take care of their household. Before long, the twins are behaving less like feral beasts and more like well-behaved little gentlemen.

Julia Bedford (Linda Hamilton) is not having a great year. When the homemaker divorces her cheating and vindictive husband–who hides his assets and makes sure that she gets almost none of “his” money–she finds herself in a hopeless situation. The bleak and predictable premise is the basis of “Home by Christmas.”

At first glance, “Bones” is a solid crime procedural. But as the series enters its fifth season, it’s clear that “Bones” really works as a romantic drama as well. Not romantic in the mushy sense, but in a way that makes viewers’ hearts skip a beat (from joy at seeing a good coupling, not from the shock of all the gory bodies being discovered, examined, and dissected).

On the seventh season of the Emmy-winning sitcom “Two and a Half Men,” the majority of the episodes revolve around love. And the man nursing a heartache isn’t who you’d suspect. Charlie (Charlie Sheen) has always been a love-’em and leave-’em kind of guy. But now engaged to Chelsea, he wants to settle down. Wait, make that he wants to want to settle down.

Some colleges live for football games. At Atlanta’s tony Truth University, it’s all about stepping. In Stomp the Yard: Homecoming–the straight-to-DVD sequel to 2007′s Stomp the Yard–the film focuses on a young student named Chance Harris (Collins Pennie). Chance is an exceptional dancer who got involved with the wrong group of people.

Scott Simon, National Public Radio host and author, chose a subject close to home for his latest book, “Baby, We Were Meant for Each Other: In Praise of Adoption” (Random House, $22). He and his French wife, former film producer Caroline Richard, have adopted two daughters from China and his poignant and witty memoir speaks not only of their family’s experiences, but also those of other adoptive parents, such as “Freakonomics” author Steven Levitt. Simon, 58, resides on the East Coast with Richard and their daughters Elise and Lina. Currently on a nationwide book tour, Simon’s tour dates are available on his website (www.scottsimonbooks.com).