Claire Messud, known for such works as “When the World Was Steady” and “The Last Life,” returns with an introspective look at life for three friends in the Big Apple in “The Emperor’s Children.” In nonfiction, look for “The Family That Couldn’t Sleep,” by D.T. Max. In it, he discusses a neurological problem that has threatened people for hundreds of years. Zadie Smith’s much-acclaimed “On Beauty” is out in paperback. It’s the story of a family wrapped up in the world of higher education. Think you know about trees? Guess again. Colin Tudge will enlighten you in “The Tree: A Natural History of What Trees Are, How They Live, and Why They Matter,” coming in October.
FICTION
The Emperor’s Children, by Claire Messud, Random House, 448 pages, $25|The lives of three friends approaching their 30s in New York City entwine in this absorbing novel of fate and innocence.
The Zero, by Jess Walter, HarperCollins, 336 pages, $25.95|A follow to Walter’s “Citizen Vince,” this one centers on a police officer having trouble coping in the aftermath of 9/11.
Counterplay, by Robert K. Tanenbaum, Simon & Schuster, 433 pages, $26 |After a busload of school children are sacrificed, District Attorney Butch Karp finds himself wrapped up vengeance.
NONFICTION
The Family That Couldn’t Sleep, by D.T. Max, Random House, 336 pages, $25.95 |The author looks into prions, proteins that threaten the life and health of people and animals all over the world.
Awake in the Dark: The Best of Roger Ebert, University of Chicago Press, 504 pages, $29|Ebert has been reviewing films and covering the movie industry for 40 years. Here’s a collection of reviews, essays and interviews.
First Lady of the Confederacy: Varina Davis’s Civil War, by Joan E. Cashin, Harvard, 416 pages, $29.95|In this biography, we learn that Varina was a conflicted woman – pro-slavery but also pro-Union – who struggled under the constraints.
PAPERBACKS
On Beauty, by Zadie Smith, Penguin, 464 pages, $15|The story of two families, Smith’s novel centers on life in academia and all the politics that go into professional and personal lives.
Five Families: The Rise, Decline, and Resurgence of America’s Most Powerful Mafia Empires, by Selwyn Raab, St. Martin’s, 784, $17.95|Although in tatters today, the five families – Genovese, Gambino, Bonnano, Colombo and Lucchese – once ruled New York with an iron hand.
From a Sealed Room, by Rachel Kadish, Houghton Mifflin, 368 pages, $13.95|A family in Jerusalem shares a room from which they can hide from rocket attacks from Iraq. A personal look at the consequences of being Jewish in the Middle East.
COMING UP
The Tree: A Natural History of What Trees Are, How They Live, and Why They Matter, by Colin Tudge, Crown, 464 pages, $27.95, Oct.|The author, a British biologist, loads the reader up with interesting facts about trees, facts you probably never knew.
Twilight, by William Gay, MacAdam/Cage, 300 pages, $25, Oct.|Teenage siblings Kenneth and Corrie discover that the undertaker who buried their father has been manipulating the dead and they want him punished.
God’s War: A New History of the Crusades, by Christopher Tyerman, Harvard University Press, 986 pages, $35, Oct.|Tyerman takes a new and exhaustive look at the campaigns that took place over some 400 years in the Middle East, Spain and the Baltics.
