Weekend picks for book lovers

• An irresistible heroine spreads her wings in Kingsolver's 'Flight Behavior'
• Alice Munro's new story collection 'Dear Life' earns four stars
• Andrew Jackson's biographer takes on our third president in new bio

What should you read this weekend? USA TODAY's picks for book lovers include new 4-star fiction from Barbara Kingsolver and Alice Munro, plus Louise Erdich's National Book Award-winning novel The Round House.

Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver; Harper, 436 pp.; fiction

With her flaming red hair, the unlikely but irresistible heroine of Barbara Kingsolver's wonderful new novel about climate change and endangered butterflies comes blazing across the page in a burst of outsized personality that will have you hooked from the first paragraph.

We meet tiny ("5-foot nothing") Dellarobia Turnbow as she is marching uphill, away from the house in rural Tennessee where she lives with her husband and two little kids, on her way to meet a cute guy who's not her husband. She thinks she's about to throw her life away – until she has a vision of "unearthly beauty." She doesn't realize it at the moment, but she's just stumbled upon millions of misguided Monarch butterflies.

Soon Dellarobia, a sheep farmer's wife, is working alongside a biologist trying to understand why the butterflies are in Appalachia, rather than Mexico where they belong.

USA TODAY says **** out of four. "A terrifically entertaining read about a spirited young woman you'll miss the minute you reach the last page."

Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power by Jon Meacham; Random House, 759 pp.; non-fiction

The best-selling biographer of Andrew Jackson now presents our third president's life in a textured narrative.

USA TODAY says ***. "Meacham does an excellent job getting inside Jefferson's head and his world."

Dear Life: Stories by Alice Munro; Knopf, 336 pp.; fiction

Dear Life, Alice Munro's exquisitely calibrated collection of stories, celebrates the essence of existence, no matter how mundane.

USA TODAY says ****. "What Munro does with a story is like alchemy."

The Round House by Louise Erdrich; Harper, 336 pp.; fiction

When a woman is brutally attacked on a North Dakota reservation, her 13-year-old son sets out with his friends to uncover the truth.

USA TODAY says ****. "Deeply moving, this novel ranks among Erdrich's best work, and it is impossible to forget."

The Lawgiver by Herman Wouk; Simon & Schuster, 234 pp.; fiction

Novelist Herman Wouk, now 97, has written a story about the making of a movie about Moses that's also a sendup of Hollywood.

USA TODAY says ***. "An engaging comedy/love story about present-day Hollywood."

Contributing reviewers: Jocelyn McClurg, Claudia Puig, Deirdre Donahue, Carmela Ciuraru and Bob Minzesheimer