EDITOR’S CHOICE
Handle With Care, by Jodi Picoult, $27.95. Perennial best-seller Picoult (“Change of Heart”) delivers another engrossing family drama, spiced with her trademark blend of medicine, law and love. (She) weaves in subplots to underscore the themes of hope, regret, identity and family, leading up to her signature closing twists. Publishers Weekly
FICTION
After You’ve Gone, by Jeffrey Lent, $24. Another intense exploration of family ties, doomed love and existential questing from talented, risk-taking Lent (“Lost Nation,” “In the Fall”). The ecstatic closing pages will strike some as over-the-top, but sensitively developed characters and gorgeous prose will keep most admirers of serious American fiction engaged in this moving, though flawed novel. Kirkus
Among the Mad, by Jacqueline Winspear, $25. Best-seller Winspear’s sixth Maisie Dobbs novel (after 2008’s “An Incomplete Revenge”) raises the stakes for her psychologically astute sleuth. Winspear does her usual superb job of portraying London between the world wars. Publishers Weekly
NONFICTION
Nine Lives: Death and Life in New Orleans, $26. Boulder author Baum begins the narrative with the 1965 battering of the Ninth Ward by Hurricane Betsy and concludes in 2007. He captures the essence of the city “through the lives of nine characters over 40 years, bracketed by two epic hurricanes . . .” Baum’s chronicle leaves readers with a bittersweet understanding of what Americans lost during Hurricane Katrina. Publishers Weekly
Thirty-Nine Years of Short-Term Memory Loss: The Early Days of SNL from Someone Who Was There, by Tom Davis, $24. Writing for “Saturday Night Live” during the show’s legendary early seasons may be Davis’ claim to fame, but this captivating memoir is about much more, including his suburban Minneapolis childhood, couch-surfing through his hometown, San Francisco, and New York City during the 1970s. Publishers Weekly
No Sense of Decency: The Army-McCarthy Hearings: A Demagogue Falls and Television Takes Charge of American Politics, by Robert Shogan, $27.50. Former Newsweek and Los Angeles Times political correspondent Shogan (“Backlash: The Killing of the New Deal”) persuasively argues that the famous 1954 confrontation had a transformative effect on the nascent medium of television. An effective melding of political history and media criticism. Kirkus
PAPERBACKS
Lush Life, by Richard Price, $15. Master of the Bronx and Jersey projects, Price (Clockers) turns his unrelenting eye on Manhattan’s Lower East Side in this manic crescendo of a novel that explores the repercussions of a seemingly random shooting. Publishers Weekly
Our Daily Meds, by Melody Petersen, $16. “Drug companies have institutionalized deception,” said a former pharmaceutical executive at a 1990 Senate hearing. And former New York Times reporter Petersen details these deceptions with information that will be startling even to those who follow the news on big pharma. Publishers Weekly
The Sorrows of An American, by Siri Hustvedt, $14. In her fourth novel (following the acclaimed “What I Loved”), Hustvedt continues, with grace and aplomb, her exploration of family connectedness, loss, grief and art. Hustvedt gives great breaths of authenticity to Erik’s counseling practice, life in Minnesota and Miranda’s Jamaican heritage. Publishers Weekly
COMING UP
Dear Husband, by Joyce Carol Oates, $24.95. In this collection of 14 stories, Oates examines the lives of contemporary American families, and the act of loving more than you are loved in return. (April)
