Editor’s Choice
The Heights, Peter Hedges, $25.95.
A husband is tempted to cheat, and a happy marriage is threatened in the most successful novel yet from Hedges, best known as the author of “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape.” Warm-hearted yet unsentimental, a smooth weave of marital and neighborhood dynamics. Kirkus
FICTION
Angelology, by Danielle Trussoni, $27.95. A covert age-old war between angels and humans serves as the backdrop for Trussoni’s gripping tale of supernatural thrills and divine destinies. Suspenseful intrigues and apocalyptic battle scenes give this complexly plotted tale a vigor and vitality all the more exciting for its intelligence. Publishers Weekly
Requiem by Fire, by Wayne Caldwell, $25.
Caldwell follows up the well-received “Cataloochee” with this homespun effort about a close-knit mountain village’s fight to keep the land its inhabitants have spent their lives cultivating. As in his debut, Caldwell again attributes rich historical background to a dizzying array of colorful, authentic Southern characters. Publishers Weekly
NONFICTION
The Story of Stuff: How Our Obsession With Stuff Is Trashing the Planet, Our Communities, and Our Health — And a Vision for Change by Annie Leonard
Elaborating on the message of her widely viewed Internet video of the same title, the author argues that the consumer society’s pursuit of growth for growth’s sake is testing the limits of Earth’s carrying capacity. An earnest, reasoned contribution to the national conversation on sustainability. Kirkus
The Man Who Ate His Boots, by Anthony Brandt, $28.95.
In this engrossing chronicle of arctic exploration, Brandt follows the many expeditions launched by the British navy in the 19th century to find a sea route connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The result is a gripping — and sometimes appalling — tale of heroism and hubris. Publishers Weekly
Circle of Greed: The Spectacular Rise and Fall of the Lawyer Who Brought Corporate America to Its Knees by Patrick Dillon and Carl M. Cannon, $28.
Two Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists explore the world of a lawyer who became wealthy by representing plaintiffs against multinational corporations committing fraud but who simultaneously defrauded the legal system. Kirkus
PAPERBACKS
Secret Son, by Laila Lalami, $13.95.
“Secret Son” gives us an insider’s view of the underlying turmoil of Morocco . . . a nuanced depiction of the roots of Islamic terrorism, written by someone who intimately knows one of the stratified societies where it grows. The New York Times
Do They Know I’m Running? by David Corbett, $15.
Corbett (“Blood of Paradise”) delivers a rich, hard-hitting epic that illuminates the violent and surreal landscapes of Central America and Mexico. Fans of Luis Alberto Urrea and Don Winslow alike will be richly rewarded. Publishers Weekly
Mrs. Woolf and the Servants: An Intimate History of Domestic Life in Bloomsbury, by Alison Light, $20.
The largely untold stories of the live-in servants who eased, enriched, complicated and frustrated the domestic tranquility of Virginia Woolf and others in her circle. Light brings all her scholarly skills and imagination to bear on the task of illuminating the lives of people whom history has often ignored. Kirkus
COMING UP
Red Hook Road, by Ayelet Waldman, $25.95.In her follow to “Love and Other Impossible Pursuits,” Waldman sets her new novel on the coast of Maine as the lives of two families are affected by misfortune. (July)
