Editor’s Choice
Secrets of Eden, by Chris Bohjalian, $25. While stylistically reminiscent of his earlier best seller, “Midwives,” Bohjalian’s 13th novel is his most splendid accomplishment to date. The story revolves around the apparent murder-suicide of Alice and George Hayward and its toll on the couple’s teenage daughter Katie, the lost faith of the Rev. Stephen Drew, and the minister’s relationship with an author of books about angels. Library Journal
FICTION
Able One, by Ben Bova, $24.99. When a rogue faction of the North Korean army detonates a nuclear missile in space, an electromagnetic shockwave takes out numerous satellites and cripples communications worldwide. Fearing another attack, the U.S. military launches ABL-1, a powerful but untested 747-mounted laser. Publishers Weekly The Room and the Chair, by Lorraine Adams, $25.95. Ejecting from a plummeting jet high over the Potomac River is only one of fighter pilot Mary Goodwin’s problems in this elaborately plotted war-on-terror page-turner from Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and novelist Adams (Harbor). Publishers Weekly
NONFICTION
Willie Mays: The Life, The Legend, by James S. Hirsch, $30.
Hirsch portrays Mays as a baseball genius and an artist, albeit with imperfections making him capable of mistakes on the diamond and missteps in his personal relationships. Hirsch deftly interweaves biography and baseball tales with historical context. Library Journal
Asleep: The Forgotten Epidemic that Remains One of Medicine’s Greatest Mysteries, by Molly Caldwell Crosby, $24.95.
Crosby (“The American Plague”) relates the vexing appearance during WWI of encephalitis lethargica — sleeping sickness — through the stories of patients, doctors, and public health servants swept up in an epidemic that affected as many as 5 million people worldwide. Publishers Weekly
The Poisoner’s Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York, by Deborah Blum, $25.95.
Pulitzer Prize-winning science journalist Blum (“Ghost Hunters”) makes chemistry come alive in her enthralling account of two forensic pioneers in early 20th-century New York. With the pacing and rich characterization of a first-rate suspense novelist, Blum makes science accessible and fascinating. Publishers Weekly
PAPERBACK
All Other Nights, by Dara Horn, $14.95. A Civil War spy page-turner meets an exploration of race and religion in 19th-century America in Horn’s enthralling latest. Horn propels the love story at a thriller’s pace; the mix of love and loyalty played out in a divided America is sublime. Publishers Weekly
Slow Motion: A Memoir of a Life Rescued by Tragedy, by Dani Shapiro, $14.99.
There are two wrecks in this strikingly candid memoir, and one reads with the fascination and horror of drivers rubbernecking on a highway. The first wreck is the car crash that lands the author’s parents in the hospital, her mother with 80 broken bones, her father in a coma. The second wreck is Shapiro’s own life. Kirkus
After the Workshop, by John McNally, $15.95.
A media escort in the Midwest’s most literary town spills the beans on the book business. McNally’s text takes aim at everyone in the business — writers, agents, publishers, booksellers and even readers, crucifying each for their worst offenses — without reviling the art itself. Kirkus
COMING UP
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet, by David Mitchell, $25.
New fiction from the author of “Cloud Atlas” centers on a man-made island in Nagasaki harbor known as Dejima, Japan’s sole window onto the Western world. (July)
