"It was probably very old-fashioned of her, but she did not like to see a grown man cry.” There is something practically trademarkable about Elizabeth Strout's characters and their cadence. Fans of Lucy Barton will clock a familiar constellation of personalities in the Pulitzer Prize winner’s exquisite new novel, Anything Is Possible (Random House). Here are small-town sisters who could not be more different, a daughter longing for her mother, and Lucy Barton herself, all and ready to face her family once again. Family is equally inescapable in Patricia Lockwood's poignant Priestdaddy (Riverhead), which gives “confessional memoir” a new layer of meaning. From its hilariously irreverent first sentence, this daughter’s story of her guitarjamming, abortion-protesting, God-fearing father will grab you by the clerical collar and won’t let go. Soup’s on: In The Dinner Party’ (Little, Brown), Joshua Ferris invites you to make a meal out of his mordant tales about life’s quicksilver changes. Dr. Rock Positano and John Positano step up to the plate with Dinner with DiMaggio (Simon & Schuster). Paul Theroux ladles a steaming cup of dysfunctional-family chowder in Mother Land (Houghton Mifflin). Over at the Chiltern Firehouse (Ten Speed), chef Nuno Mendes sends out a dish of the restaurant’s famous crab doughnuts. Books to savor— or to consume in one sitting.