EDITOR’S CHOICE
Forgive Me by Amanda Eyre Ward, $23.95
Upon finishing Ward’s tantalizingly spare yet precisely powerful novel, readers will want to start all over again, looking for the clues they missed the first time around when Ward, like a cunning magician, so deftly led them astray.|Booklist
FICTION
Critical by Robin Cook, $25.95|Last seen in 2006’s “Crisis,” New York City medical examiner Laurie Montgomery diligently investigates an abrupt rise in infection deaths at the start of Cook’s lively new thriller. All the deaths can be traced to three Manhattan hospitals owned by Angels Healthcare.|Publishers Weekly
The Devil’s Labyrinth by John Saul, $25.95|Troubled by the loss of his father, teenaged Ryan is supposed to get help by switching to St. Ignatius Catholic School. But what could be less helpful than a charismatic priest, famed as an exorcist, who seems to have dark intentions of his own?|Library Journal
NONFICTION
Sin in the Second City: Madams, Ministers, Playboys, and the Battle for America’s Soul by Karen Abbott, $25.95|Free- lance journalist Abbott’s vibrant first book probes the titillating milieu of the posh, world-famous Everleigh Club brothel that operated from 1900 to 1911 on Chicago’s Near South Side.|Publishers Weekly
The World Without Us by Alan Weisman, $24.95|If a virulent virus – or even the Rapture – depopulated Earth overnight, how long before all trace of humankind vanished? That’s the provocative, and occasionally puckish, question posed by Weisman (“An Echo in My Blood”) in this imaginative hybrid of solid science reporting and morbid speculation.|Publishers Weekly
High Cotton: Four Seasons in the Mississippi Delta by Gerald Helferich, $25|Former editor and publisher Helferich tells the story of a plant, a region and a people as he recounts a year in the life of Mississippi Delta cotton farmer Zack Killebrew.|Library Journal
PAPERBACKS
God’s Favorite by Lawrence Wright, $15|Wright, an award-winning New Yorker staff writer and author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning “The Looming Tower,” in this novel follows Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega as he flees U.S. troops all the way to the Vatican Embassy.|Amazon.com
A Land Gone Lonesome: An Inland Voyage Along the Yukon River by Dan O’Neill, $15.95|Outdoorsman O’Neill (“The Last Giant of Beringia”) steers his canoe through the history and topography of the Yukon River, which runs through Canada and Alaska, letting its course carry his witty travelogue.|Publishers Weekly
Only Revolutions by Mark Z. Danielewski, $16.95|Danielewski’s follow-up to “House of Leaves” is a dizzying tour of the modernist and postmodernist heights – and a similarly impressive tour de force.|Publishers Weekly
COMING UP
OCTOBER
Salem Witch Judge: The Life and Repentance of Samuel Sewall by Eve LaPlante, $25.95|In 1692, Salem magistrate Samuel Sewall (1652-1730), along with several others, presided over the conviction and execution of 20 people accused of witchcraft. Five years and much soul-searching later, Sewall publicly repented of his part in the witch trials.|Publishers Weekly
NOVEMBER
Modernism: The Lure of Heresy by Peter Gay, $35|The National Book Award-winning author explores the shocking modernist rebellion that, beginning in the 1840s, transformed art, literature, music and film with its assault on traditional forms.
