Editor’s Choice
Master of the Delta, by Thomas Cook, $24. Edgar-winner Cook (“Red Leaves”) examines the slow collapse of a prominent Southern family in this magnificent tale of suspense set in 1954. Publishers Weekly
FICTION
Trading Dreams at Midnight, by Diane McKinney-Whetstone, $24.95. McKinney- Whetstone (“Blues Dancing,” 1999, etc.) returns to familiar territory — the African- American community of West Philadelphia — in her latest novel. This time out, a grandmother and granddaughter try to come to terms with the complicated woman who ties them together. Kirkus
Art in America, by Ron McClarty, $25,95. Ambitious and consistently charming, this overstuffed third novel by the author of “The Memory of Running” is brimming with gems of small-town life. Publishers Weekly
NONFICTION
What Would Kinky Do: How to Unscrew a Screwed-Up World, by Kinky Friedman, $23.95. Free-flowing and free-associative, occasionally punctuating with puns, Friedman’s work targets topics from Jack Ruby and Michael Chabon to Texas etiquette and politics. His writing here is funny, focused and hugely entertaining. Publishers Weekly
Empires of the Sea: The Siege of Malta, the Battle of Lepanto, and the Contest for the Center of the World, by Roger Crowley, $30. Masterfully synthesizing primary and secondary sources, Crowley reconstructs the battles, Malta and Lepanto, that shaped the struggle and introduces the larger-than-life personalities that dominated council chambers and fields of battle. Publishers Weekly
Me of Little Faith, by Lewis Black, $24.95. Readers already familiar with Black as a loudmouthed regular on “The Daily Show” will be delighted to find he rants just as well on the page as he does in person. Here, he homes in on religion, which he thinks is taken too seriously and therefore is “open to ridicule.” Publishers Weekly
PAPERBACKS
Richistan: A Journey Through the American Wealth Boom and the Lives of the New Rich, by Robert Frank, $13.95. When Frank, a columnist for The Wall Street Journal, began noticing that the ranks of America’s wealthy had more than doubled in the past decade, and that they were beginning to cluster together, he decided to investigate this new society, where $1 million barely gets you in the door. Publishers Weekly
The Hidden Man, by Anthony Flacco, $14. Gripping . . . Flacco’s screenwriting talent shines in this story of the Earth’s destructive power and humanity’s moral depravity. Dickens meets Hannibal Lecter. Brace yourself. Booklist
Here If You Need Me: A Memoir by Kate Braestrup, $13.99. It may take ingenuity to interest browsers in a memoir by a middle- aged mother who, 11 years ago, was suddenly widowed, then became a Unitarian-Universalist minister, and now works as chaplain to game wardens in Maine. But good memoir writing does not depend on celebrity or adventure. Publishers Weekly
COMING UP
Effigy, by Alissa York, $25.95. Already published in Canada, where it was shortlisted for the country’s highest literary award, this novel is based on the real events of the Mountain Meadows Massacre in 1857. (September)
Left in Dark Times: A Stand Against the New Barbarism, by Bernard-Henri Levy, $25. The famous philosopher and journalist dissects the totalitarianism of the past and warns of a new one in the future. (September)
