Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi ’00 directed and produced this documentary film that follows the Senegal-born pop artist and humanitarian Youssou N’Dour as he tours at home and abroad. The film focuses on the recording of the singer-songwriter’s 2004 Grammy-winning album Egypt, which featured secular music and songs based on devotional Islamic music — prompting criticism from Sufi leaders for incorporating sacred religious themes into his songs. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times called the film “absorbing.” It is making its way around festivals and theaters this year and next.

(Ondine)

This debut recording features violist David Aaron Carpenter playing Edward Elgar’s “Cello Concerto in E Minor” (1919) and Alfred Schnittke’s “Viola Concerto” (1985), conducted by Christoph Eschenbach. Carpenter adapted much of the Elgar concerto himself, using an arrangement by violist Lionel Tertis as a template. David Patrick Stearns of The Philadelphia Inquirer called the CD “impressive.”

(Simon & Schuster)

This novel that Publishers Weekly called a “spellbinding debut” follows Luke and his imaginary friend, Daniel, whom he meets playing in the park. Daniel, who narrates the story, becomes more powerful and antagonistic over time. The novel explores Luke’s struggle with his inner demons and his relationship with his mentally unstable mother. DeLeeuw is an assistant editor at the literary magazine Tin House in New York.

(St. Martin’s Press)

In this collection of more than 50 essays written by the late New York Times political reporter and Washington bureau chief, Apple recounts extraordinary meals and little-known facts of foods from America, Europe, Asia, and Australia. Apple began writing food articles for the Times in the late 1970s and his writing also appeared in Gourmet and National Geographic Traveler, among other ­publications.