Editor’s Choice
Song Yet Sung, by James McBride, $25.95. Escaped slaves, free blacks, slave-catchers and plantation owners weave a tangled web of intrigue and adventure in best-selling memoirist (“The Color of Water”) McBride’s intricately constructed and impressive second novel. Publishers Weekly
FICTION
John, by Niall Williams, $24.95. With plenty of imagination and occasionally grandiloquent prose, Williams (“Four Letters of Love”) pens the last days of the Apostle John, the beloved disciple of Jesus who, tradition says, wrote the wild, apocalyptic book of Revelation, as well as the Gospel and Epistles of John. Publishers Weekly
The Crazy School, by Cornelia Read, $23.99. While some characters, like the social-climbing parents who drop in between vacations, verge on stereotype, Read (“A Field of Darkness”) graphically depicts the depressing underside of a supposedly elite private school. Publishers Weekly
NONFICTION
Twilight at Monticello: The Final Years of Thomas Jefferson, by Alan Pell Crawford, $27. The event-filled but melancholy history of the 17 years after Jefferson’s departure from the presidency in 1809 … Insightful analysis and lucid prose make this autumnal portrait a rewarding experience. Kirkus
The Next American Century: How the U.S. Can Thrive As Other Powers Rise, by Nina Hachigian and Mona Sutphen, $26. With a major shift in American foreign policy, the U.S. can step into a new leadership role in the world, argue Hachigian and Sutphen in this lucid and compelling book … (T)heir central thesis rests on the assertion that the United States must pursue “strategic collaboration” with the “pivotal powers” — China, European Union, India, Japan and Russia. Publishers Weekly
Lucia: A Venetian Life in the Age of Napoleon, by Andrea Di Robilant, $24.95. Against the backdrop of the fall of the Venetian Republic, we learn the touching story of a young woman struggling to cope with a distant husband and the loss of a child, as control of her homeland passes back and forth between France and Austria. Library Journal
PAPERBACKS
Jimi Hendrix Turns Eighty, by Tim Sandlin, $14. The year is 2022 (the year Jimi would’ve turned 80), and straight-laced retiree Guy Fontaine, at his daughter’s behest, moves into the Mission Pescadero nursing home, where aged hippies, former radicals and random California nutjobs refuse to give up their sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll. Publishers Weekly
Into the Wild, by Jon Krakauer, $13.95. After graduating from Emory University in Atlanta in 1992, top student and athlete Christopher McCandless abandoned his possessions, gave his entire $24,000 savings account to charity and hitchhiked to Alaska, where he went to live in the wilderness. Four months later, he turned up dead. Publishers Weekly
The View From Castle Rock, by Alice Munro, $14.95. In “The View from Castle Rock,” (Munro’s) full range of gifts is on display: indelible characters, deep insights about human behavior and relationships, vibrant prose, and seductive, suspenseful storytelling. Publishers Weekly
COMING UP
Windy City, by Scott Simon, $25. NPR anchor and bestselling author Simon (“Pretty Birds”) takes on the rough and tumble world of Chicago politics in this humorous novel. (March)
Polk: The Man Who Transformed the Presidency and America, by Walter R. Borneman, $27.95. James K. Polk won one of the country most hotly contested elections and, as president, nearly doubled the size of the country. Here is his story. (April)
