Editor’s Choice
Junkyard Dogs, by Craig Johnson, $25.95. Johnson’s sixth mystery featuring Wyoming sheriff Walt Longmire (after 2009’s “Dark Horse”) will remind readers that a big city isn’t necessary for a compelling crime story and enduring hero. Series fans, as well as newcomers, will cheer the laconic Walt every step of the way. Publishers Weekly
FICTION
Anthropology of an American Girl, by Hilary Thayer Hamann, $26. If publishers could figure out a way to turn crack into a book, it’d read a lot like this. Originally a self-published cult hit in 2003 (since re-edited), Hamann’s debut traces the sensual, passionate, and lonely interior of a young female artist growing up in windswept East Hampton at the end of the 1970s. Publishers Weekly
Executive Intent, by Dale Brown, $26.99. China and Russia pursue newly aggressive policies in hot spots like Somalia and Yemen that threaten the U.S. in this exciting near-future political thriller from best-seller Brown. Techno-thriller fans will enjoy the detailed descriptions of cutting-edge technologies. Publishers Weekly
NONFICTION
The Icarus Syndrome: A History of American Hubris, by Peter Beinart, $27.99. A century of unwise American military adventures is probed in this perceptive study of foreign- policy overreach. The book amounts to a brief for moderation, good sense, humility, and looking before leaping — virtues that merit Beinart’s spirited, cogent defense. Publishers Weekly
Pearl Buck in China: Journey to the Good Earth, by Hilary Spurling, $27. Spurling’s fast-paced and compassionate portrait of a writer who described the truth before her eyes without ideological bias, whose personal life was as tumultuous as the times she lived in, will grip readers who, unlike Spurling, didn’t grow up reading Buck’s work. Publishers Weekly
Making Haste From Babylon: the Mayflower Pilgrims and Their World, A New History, by Nick Bunker, $30. This superb book secures for the Pilgrims their iconic perch among the earliest founders of colonial America. Bunker has succeeded in writing a major history, unprecedented in its sweep, of the Plymouth Colony. Certain to be the dominating work on the Pilgrims for decades. Publishers Weekly
PAPERBACKS
The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America, by Douglas Brinkley, $19.99, How a city-born child of privilege became one of the greatest forces in American conservation is the subject of Douglas Brinkley’s vast, inspiring and enormously entertaining book. . . . this book has Rooseveltian energy. It is largehearted, full of the vitality of its subject and a palpable love for the landscapes it describes. The New York Times
The Story Sisters, by Alice Hoffman, $15. Hoffman’s characters are always moving back and forth, challenging our perceptions, daring us to judge them. Her sentences tremble with allegory. . . . In the end, The Story Sisters, for all its magic realism, is about a family navigating through motherhood, sisterhood, daughterhood. It’s “Little Women” on mushrooms. The New York Times
Await Your Reply, by Dan Chaon, $15. Three disparate characters and their oddly interlocking lives propel this intricate novel about lost souls and hidden identities from National Book Award-finalist Chaon (“You Remind Me of Me”).
COMING UP
The Widower’s Tale, by Julia Glass, $26.95. The National Book Award winner (“Three Junes”) returns with a story of a widower who is forced to examine the choices he’s made since his wife’s death. (September)
