Editor’s Choice
A Mad Desire to Dance, by Elie Wiesel, $25. Nobel laureate Wiesel (“Night”) grapples with questions of madness, sadness and memory in this difficult but powerful novel. (It is a) journey through sadness and toward redemption, a meditation on the hand dealt to Holocaust survivors and a valuable parable on the wages of human trauma. Publishers Weekly
FICTION
The Birthday Present, by Barbara Vine, $25. British master Vine (the pen name of Ruth Rendell), a life Labor peer who used her knowledge of politics in 2002’s “The Blood Doctor” to explore the personal rather than the political ramifications of power, does both in this intricate novel. Publishers Weekly
All the Colors of Darkness, by Peter Robinson, $25.99. As much spy thriller as crime story, best-seller Robinson’s solid 18th DCI Alan Banks novel (after “Friend of the Devil”) finds the Yorkshire copper trying to unravel a murder-suicide with potential ties to national security. Publishers Weekly
NONFICTION
Why We Make Mistakes: How We Look Without Seeing, Forget Things in Seconds, and Are All Pretty Sure We Are Way Above Average, by Joseph T. Hallinan, $24.95. A Pulitzer winner for his stories on Indiana’s medical malpractice system, Hallinan has made himself an expert on the hiccups of human psychology and perception used regularly (by politicians, marketers and our own subconscious) to confuse, misinform, manipulate and equivocate.
Cheever: A Life, by Blake Bailey, $35. A comprehensive treatment of the tormented but artful life of one of fiction’s modern masters. Bailey (“A Tragic Honesty: The Life and Work of Richard Yates”) plunges deeply into the murky, sometimes fetid stew of John Cheever’s life (1912-82). Publishers Weekly
Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die, by Chip Heath and Dan Heath, $25. (The Heath brothers) borrow the “stickiness” metaphor from Malcolm Gladwell’s “The Tipping Point,” which examined the social forces causing ideas to make the leap (“tip”) from small to large groups. The Heaths focus on the traits that contribute to an idea’s ability to catch on, or “stick.” Publishers Weekly
PAPERBACKS
Mudbound, by Hillary Jordan, $13.95. Debut novelist Jordan won the 2006 Bellwether Prize for this disquieting reflection on rural America, told from multiple perspectives. Family bonds are twisted and broken in Jordan’s meditation on the fallen South. Kirkus
A Return to Values: A Conservative Looks at His Party, by Bob Beauprez, $14.95. Former congressman Beauprez offers his take on what Republicans need to do to regain the power they held before the last two national elections. He looks at immigration, national security, health care and the economy. The Denver Post
Gas City, by Loren Estleman, $13.95. Shamus-winner Estleman momentarily sidetracks his long-running Amos Walker series in favor of a rich, smartly detailed study of a Midwestern city that is serene and law- abiding on the surface but corrupt at its core. Publishers Weekly
COMING UP
Sunnyside, by Glen David Gold, $26.95. The author of the international best seller “Carter Meets the Devil” is back with a story centering on the life of Charlie Chaplin in the early days of World War I, in a tale that mixes historical fact with wild imagination. (May)
