Editor’s Choice
Liberty, by Garrison Keillor, $25.95. One of the funnier Lake Wobegon novels might be the saddest, as well. The farcical note on which the book opens gives no indication of the tragic undercurrent to come. In Keillor’s latest, town mechanic Clint Bunsen has become too dictatorial in his role as chairman of Lake Wobegon’s Fourth of July festivities, or so his hometown critics contend. Kirkus
FICTION
The Sealed Letter, by Emma Donoghue, $26. In her third historical novel, Donoghue (“Landing,” “Slammerkin”) portrays a sordid Victorian divorce that roiled the women’s suffrage movement. Kirkus
A Cure for Night, by Justin Peacock, $24.95. Peacock’s intimate knowledge of the courtroom and carefully crafted prose aside, the gritty realism, intense emotional intimacy and socially relevant subject matter — racism, America’s war on drugs, the “corporate culture” of drug dealers — make this a deeply thought-provoking read. Publishers Weekly
NONFICTION
Enemy of the State: The Trial and Execution of Saddam Hussein, by Michael A. Newton and Michael P. Scharf, $26.95. Law professors Newton and Scharf recount their involvement in the trial of Saddam Hussein, from the Iraqis’ iconic removal of the statue of Saddam Hussein in Firdus Square in April 2003 to the deposed leader’s chaotic hanging. Readers interested in the future of global jurisprudence will find much to ponder in this detailed account. Publishers Weekly
The Secret War With Iran: The 30-Year Struggle Against the World’s Most Dangerous Terrorist Power, by Ronen Bergman, $27.95. Drawing on an astonishing amount of research, Israeli journalist Bergman describes in fascinating detail the three-decade intelligence struggle between Iran and the West. It is a grim history, dominated by a series of failures. Publishers Weekly
Clawing At the Limits of Cool: Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and the Greatest Jazz Collaboration Ever,” by Farah Jasmine Griffin and Salim Washington, $24.95. Clear, sophisticated exploration of jazz’s most musically potent pairing. Griffin and Washington pull readers into the world of Miles Davis and John Coltrane during their collaborations between 1955 and 1960. Kirkus
PAPERBACKS
Tree of Smoke, by Denis Johnson, $16, will grab you eventually and get inside your head like the war it is describing — mystifying, horrifying, mesmerizing. Johnson, a poet, ex-junkie and adventure journalist, has written a book that by the end wraps around you as tightly as a jungle snake. It won the National Book Award. Washington Post
The Indian Clerk, by David Leavitt, $16. The certainty attributed to mathematics is richly contrasted to the uncertainty of human relationships in Leavitt’s unusual and absorbing eighth novel. Kirkus
The Great Upheaval: America and the Birth of the Modern World, 1788-1800, by Jay Winik, $17.95. In this popular history of America, France, and Russia during the last decade of the 18th century, Winik truly brings the age alive. Each chapter addresses one of these countries (the Ottoman Empire also surely deserved its own chapters instead of containment within the Russian chapter) but always weaves in perspectives relating to the others. Library Journal
COMING UP
The Hour I First Believed, by Wally Lamb, $29.95. In his first novel in 10 years, Lamb’s ambitious book centers on a teacher, a trauma and . . . a troubled family. (November)
Roads to Quoz: An American Mosey, by William Least Heat-Moon, $27.99. Just as he did 25 years or so ago with “Blue Highways,” Heat-Moon is back on the road, this time to small-town America. (October)
